Doctor Strange 2 Takes a Page Out of Deadpool 2’s Book

Doctor Strange 2 Takes a Page Out of Deadpool 2’s Book

Sam Raimi remains a subversive filmmaker at heart. He proved it by one-upping a great Deadpool 2 gag in the middle of Doctor Strange 2.

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Doctor Strange 2 Takes a Page Out of Deadpool 2’s Book

The following contains spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, now playing in theaters.

The Illuminati was billed as one of the major selling points of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and from the perspective of popcorn fun, they didn’t disappoint. The council of heroic luminaries — including a few with no current counterparts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — arrived as expected to judge Doctor Strange and reveal the possibilities of Phase Four. The new movie delivers the moment with the proper aplomb, and it’s likely to get the most cheers from Marvel fans eager to catch a glimpse of what the future has in store.

And then, in typical Sam Raimi fashion, it all goes horrifyingly sideways. In that sense, The Multiverse of Madness draws inspiration from a much different Marvel project: Deadpool 2, which wasn’t there to honor Marvel so much as smash a pie right in the franchise’s face. Raimi, whose iconoclastic instincts never quite faded, repeats the stunt on a larger and more complex scale.

Doctor Strange 2 Takes a Page Out of Deadpool 2’s Book

The Deadpool 2 sequence entails the deployment of X-Force, which Wade Wilson created to stop Cable from killing young Russell Collins before a future Collins can kill Cable’s family. Deadpool himself was a regular presence in the X-Force comics — often as an antagonist — and the team deployed in the film is a who’s who of established in-comics members, including Shatterstar, Domino, Bedlam, Vanisher and Zeitgeist. That’s the set-up for the joke, which is further obscured by several smaller gags throughout. The final member of the team is a mustachioed man named Peter, who doesn’t appear to possess any powers, for instance, and the team begins the operation by jumping out of a plane to the sounds of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” a direct poke at a similar moment in Iron Man 2, which used “Shoot to Thrill” for Tony Stark’s big entrance.

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That leaves the audience unprepared for the team’s shockingly swift demise as they land. Deadpool’s parachute gets hung up on a hotel sign while he watches the remainder of X-Force get killed in increasingly absurd ways: everything from dropping directly into a helicopter’s rotors to being pulled into a wood chipper. Only Domino lands safely, and she and Deadpool must complete the mission on their own. Needless to say, the movie makes full use of its R-rating in the process, not only in the horrific nature of each death but with Deadpool cursing a blue streak the whole time.

It might be the most subversive moment in the whole film, and Raimi takes exquisite advantage of the opportunity to do something similar to the Illuminati in The Multiverse of Madness. Their arrival is thrilling and full of surprises, including the likes of Mister Fantastic and Black Bolt, as well as promised figures like Professor X and Captain Carter. They’re introduced to Strange one by one, giving audiences a chance to cheer for each one and leaving the moment open to gentle criticisms of fan servicing.

Like Deadpool 2, it’s all a set-up. Despite Strange’s admonitions, they feel confident they can handle the Scarlet Witch when she comes calling. The reality proves very different. She dispatches two of them in perfunctory fashion – Mister Fantastic by turning his body into spaghetti-like strings, Black Bolt by erasing his mouth and letting his own powers destroy him – and while the remainder put up more of a fight than X-Force did, they’re each dispatched in summary and ironic fashion. They last long enough to let Strange and his friends make their move, but the swiftness and comparative ease of their demise stand in sharp contrast to their roll-out in the film’s promotional material.

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And obviously, that’s the point. Raimi is playing with house money when it comes to the characters since they’re all variants anyway and can be easily replaced for future MCU projects. This Captain Carter, for instance, was almost certainly different than What If…?’s Captain Carter. That gives him license to subvert expectations on an A-list scale as well as enforce the notion that nothing in The Multiverse of Madness can be counted on. The Illuminati is simply too tempting a target to resist. Deadpool 2 showed it the way, but it took Raimi to plant the same idea in the middle of the most successful pop-culture franchise of all time.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is currently playing in theaters.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/doctor-strange-2-deadpool-2-comparison-mcu/

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