Long before he entered the realm of superheroes with his Spider-Man trilogy and, much later, Dr Strange movie, Sam Raimi was a master of horror comedy, most commonly known for his Evil Dead trilogy. Well, with his latest film Send Help, Raimi has returned to his horror comedy roots, delivering both a funny and gory movie following two highly questionable people.
Prepare for your opinion on the characters to switch a bunch in this film.
Send Help stars Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien, and tells the story of Linda Liddle (McAdams), a socially awkward yet hard working woman who has more than earned a promotion at the company she works for. These hopes are cruelly dashed with the arrival of her new boss Bradley Preston (O’Brien), a petulant man child who only has the position of CEO because he inherited it. When the two are stranded on an island as the sole survivors of a plane crash, they find their positions reversed, with Bradley now at the mercy of his cruel boss, Linda. What follows is a battle of wills between the two, improved by great character writing and fantastic performances from both McAdams and O’Brien.
Not to mention a whole lot of fake blood.
The script does a great job of flipping the initial situation on its head. After the crash it is extremely cathartic to see the immature Bradley be put in his place by Linda and have to count on her survival expertise to survive. However, as the movie goes on and we get more insight into Linda’s psych and the actions it drives her too, Bradley becomes more pitiable. This culminates in the most uncomfortable scene of the entire movie, which will have every man who watches cringing into the back of their seats.
This scene had me experiencing Misery flashbacks. If you know, you know.
Speaking of, this movie is very gory. The first moment of bloody violence on the island had me sitting back and thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, this is a Sam Raimi film!” His style is all over the movie, from its great dark humor, to the gory sequences, delivering a pretty enjoyable movie overall. Granted, I do think the ending felt kind of lackluster, but that does certainly not destroy the film. The film maintains a great conflict between its two lead characters, both of whom are backed up by excellent performances from their actors, delivering a funny, disturbing, and all around good time at the movies. I recommend checking this one out, especially if you are a fan of Sam Raimi’s horror comedies.
Despite it not being among my favourite MCU films, I still have fond memories of watching the first Dr Strange, so I was excited to see the sequel. Directed by Sam Raimi, Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness sees the titular hero sorcerer, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, become the protector of a teenage girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who has the ability to traverse the Multiverse. Pursued by various monsters from other dimensions, Strange and the Sorceror Supreme, Wong (Benedict Wong), seek the help of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), her story continuing from WandaVision. I have heard some say that Wanda’s story in this film does not match her’s from the show but, having never seen WandaVision, I cannot attest to whether or not this is the case. What I can attest to is that those who have not seen WandaVision will still be able to understand what is going on with her story, since I could understand it despite not having seen the show.
I quite enjoyed Wanda’s arc in this movie, though I have heard some who have seen WandaVision may have mixed feelings.
Back to the film as a whole, I quite enjoyed Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It certainly has its issues but I found a lot of it to be quite good, especially the character writing for Strange. His character arc in this movie is great and pairs off well with the wacky direction of Raimi, whose depiction of the Multiverse results in numerous interesting locations and new characters, some of which you will recognize from other franchises. Another part of Raimi’s direction that goes well with this story, for the most part, is his skill in horror.
The horror moments of Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness are quite effective, at times.
Raimi is the director of the Evil Dead, after all, and you can definitley see homages to that film in this movie. These homages often work out well, with one gruesome and creative twist in the third act being very enjoyable to watch play out. However, there were certain times this horror style did not work for me, like one jump scare that was so overplayed to the point that it broke my immersion. Another criticism I have is that I felt like the pacing was a little off at times, with a few scenes that needed just a little more room to breathe.
I do feel that some scenes, although impactful, went a little fast
As for the post-credits scenes, the first one we get really proved to me that I’m going to have to start looking up every teased new character in MCU films going forward because I often have no idea who these new characters are. That’s not a criticism, though, just an observation. Overall, Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is another fun film in the MCU. It has great character arcs for Dr Strange and Wanda (unless you think her arc does not match Wandavision), and Sam Raimi’s horror style works well with the Multiverse. It will be interesting to see how the MCU follows up on these alternate universes going forward.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 