I'll preface this by saying I'm not a casual viewer, and have multiple watches of every piece of MCU media, except one. Loki. (Which was poorly written, poorly acted and felt like a departure from the character we actually knew and liked)

The person who wrote/created/produced Loki also wrote MoM. If like me you're curious and look into his credentials for "is this person someone who should be a lead on a marvel project" the answer is an overwhelming no and the proof is in the pudding.

Michael Waldron had ONE writing credit to his name when getting the job, one episode of Rick and Morty (season 4, as we all know that's when it declined). Upon realising that suddenly the absolute mess of both this and Loki made sense. It has not been written by someone who understand narrative, character arcs or plot. This film pulls you from one scene to another with no more explanation than "because we said so". Now, this style works for Rick and Morty, like it or loathe it the off the wall episodes have a cult following for a reason. The MCU cannot fit that mold, there is far too much background and media to ask the audience just to accept the characters odd choices as logical. We know these characters and have done for some time, to change them so dramatically with no arc or explanation is insulting to casual and devout viewer alike. The characters feel wrong, intrinsically, and nothing like we know or recognise and actively destroys previous well executed character arcs (eg wandavision). The only good thing going for the movie is the actors do their best with what they have in light of a truly awful, cringe worthy and eye rollingly bad script, not that it helps much. Olsen particularly does a very good job portraying Wanda's insanity, but pointing out the pure sexism of her character is for another essay (of course Michael Waldron believes even the baddest witch in town seeks only to be a suburban housewife - yawn)

With marvel sometimes you have to take things with a pinch of salt and suspend your disbelief a touch and trust the process- we all survived the dark world right. Dialogue can be a place where the MCU falls flat, in MoM this was on another level and truly there was nothing to distract you, the fights are littered by groan worthy quips and no characters come through with any personality or intelligence. "But surely" I hear you shout "surely the CGI is worth the ticket price", And yet,it is some of the worst I've seen of any movie- not just marvel (and yes I am including spy kids in this).

From the first frame you feel as though you're watching a pirated copy, the cgi is noticeable and is fourth wall shattering. You're completely aware you're watching a (poor) movie and it makes it incredibly difficult to feel immersed, beck everything does here. Even very small things like the costuming and makeup fell flat, the women are all in heels with distractingly bad makeup even Stranges beard looked like it would peel off any second.

Then came the cameos, and more cameos, and more cameos slowly becoming egregious and add quite literally nothing to the plot, for once no one reacted, at this point you're both so overwhelmed and bored in equal amounts that the cameos fall flat, luckily they don't stick around.

At no point did a smile nor a speck of seratonin cross my mind during what ended up feeling like a true never ending experience.

Overall I feel as though this film was a tale of two filmmakers with incredibly stylised visions. This clash of creators could have seen on paper as a rip roaring ride of a true multiverse of madness, only it didn't work. Michael Waldron had a vision that felt like a Rick and morty episode, and Sam Raimi wanted to do an mcu Evil Dead, as such parents might want to rethink bringing any yunguns. Objectively both of those are truly terrible ideas even taken separately. Together it makes the mess we were given I still am not sure what we even watched. Was it Doctor Strange? No. Was is a continuation of Wandavision? Also no. Was it a horror film? No. MCU? Definitely not.

After the trailer it felt like a bait and switch, leaving the theatre I felt robbed of my time, robbed of my money and robbed of that feeling of joy I usually have after watching a marvel film in cinema, my fondness for the mcu has definitely taken a hit.

In true marvel cinema style there was a moment where the theatre cheered almost as loud as Endgame, unfortunately it was when it ended- I was one of them.