Action in Dr Strange and The Multiverse of Madness

The image above depicts a fight scene of the Marvel movie “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness”. The first Marvel film since its acquisition by Disney to feature 18+ violence and horror. The conflict in this part of the film serves to concrete the building conflict throughout the film, as it depicts the deuteragonist, Wanda Maximoff as a perpetrator and we watch her slowly kill each hero, one by one. The scene begins with the team of heroes, which is made up of 2 men (Black Bolt and Mr Fantastic) and 2 women (Captain Marvel and Captain Britain), 3 of them being white and 1 black woman.

At the beginning of the scene Mr Fantastic starts to threaten Wanda with how powerful his comrades are and how if she doesn’t give up then she will lose. To accentuate this, the camera pans to Black Bolt and zooms in, then zooms out slowly as he is being slowly killed. It starts to cut quickly to each one of them to capture their reactions and then it cuts to Wanda again as he executes him. After this the action starts moving forward when Mr Fantastic proceeds to attack Wanda, the camera focuses on following their hands as if they were the main tool that carry the action of the scene. The cuts are seamless as the main focus of the moment is capturing how powerful Wanda is that she is able to overpower each hero. She lifts Mr Fantastic up in the air and starts disintegrating him, for this an aerial shot is used to show the viewer the suffering he is being put through. On the contrary to the previous scenes where the stage was being set and the tension was being created, there are now less slow zoom ins and the cuts are more natural as they are not focused anymore on capturing the characters expressions and dialogue but following the movements as naturally as possible so that it’s easier for the viewer to understand how the characters are interacting with each other and the stage.

Ever since Disney bought Marvel, most of the films have been directed towards a young demographic. Even though their movies contain fight scenes most of them are acclaimed for the execution of the CGI, cinematography and choreography. The portrayal of the characters and ability to create a universe is what has made the MCU famous. Now, with the release of Multiverse of Madness, a film that got a PG-13 rating even though it features gore-y scenes, it has been shown its desire to experiment with a new audience. Studies have shown that R Rating movies usually don’t perform well in the box office, according to a study led by Goff, Wilson, et al (2014) “The estimates in the previous sections suggest that R-rated films perform worse at the box office, but that that effect does not appear to be causal…. [D]espite lower revenues earned by rated R films, studios release rated R projects because such films are more likely to garner critical praise. We do not argue that an R-rating causally improves a film’s critical response. Rather, films with R-ratings, and whatever traits might associate with those R-ratings, tend to appeal to critics.”. The movie was subject to a lot of criticism as it was not as terrifying as it was promoted to be but not a kid’s movie either. Still, it was not a complete failure according to Deadline (2022) where they mentioned “Despite posting one of the biggest second-weekend drops for a Marvel Cinematic Universe title (-67% at the domestic box office) and upset fans, Doctor Strange 2, still profited with $284M after all ancillaries. “ Showing that despite not satisfying fans, the fansbase they have constructed over the years was loyal enough to avoid a millionaire loss.

Furthermore, taking into consideration how the movie still profited, we have to take into consideration of the teens-young adults that watched it that probably went thanks to the trailers promoting it under “horror” “more mature”, which could be an issue in terms of how these young people are being constantly exposed to gore and violence to the point where they can become desensitized. According to Huesmann (2009) “Repeated exposures to emotionally activating media or video games can lead to habituation of certain natural emotional reactions. This process is called “desensitization.” Negative emotions experienced automatically by viewers in response to a particular violent or gory scene decline in intensity after many exposures…The child can then think about and plan proactive aggressive acts without experiencing negative affect”. This is an issue that the children and teens that are fans of such a big franchise could be victims of and that there should be more awareness of how what we consume may affect us on a deeper level.

Works Cited

Huesmann, L Rowell. “The impact of electronic media violence: scientific theory and research.” The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine vol. 41,6 Suppl 1 (2007): S6-13.

Goff, Brian & Wilson, Dennis & Zimmer, David. (2014). Why do Movie Studios Produce R-rated Films?. Applied Economics and Finance. 2.

D’Alessandro, Anthony. “‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Weaves Way to No. 4 in Deadline’s 2022 Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament.” Deadline, April 11, 2023. https://deadline.com/2023/04/doctor-strange-in-the-multiverse-of-madness-movie-profits-1235321384/.