This was definitely a Sam Raimi movie, but it wasn’t like Marvel just gave him the keys and said, “Have at it!” It still fits into the Marvel mold, for better or for worse. It seemed like they made it as dark as they could have while keeping the PG-13 rating and delivering a generally family friendly movie. I enjoyed the darker elements here a lot, especially the “Go back to hell!” from Christine at the end.

The Strange and Christine relationship had me more choked up than I expected. I hadn’t seen the first one in a while and I mostly forgot about Rachel McAdams character in general. On a negative note, I felt almost no connection to the kid at all. we we barely knew anything about her other than the memory scene. I could help but think she was mostly there to support Strange’s character development.

If I hadn’t seen WandaVision (which is the only show I’ve seen this far) I would be very lost. That’s not a knock or anything. I just got lucky that I watched it beforehand. This movie serves a nice conclusion to Wanda’s arc, although we don’t get to see the aftermath at all. So maybe it’s not a conclusion? 

Overall it was a solid entry in the MCU and while it wasn’t completely different than the other installments, it did have character and a uniqueness not always present in other titles.