Let me start by saying I was excited going into this movie and had fairly high expectations. Coming off of Spiderman, I was hoping for a little less nostalgia bombing and a lot more creative storytelling. What I got was poorly written garbage dumb of a film who's cinematography was it's only real saving grace.

The storyline is the weakest point. It was fairly linear and easy to follow for being so-called "madness" but it doesn't deliver much substance beyond the basic plot points and barely kept my interest. In an attempt to be edgy and horrifying, much of the story centred around satanist themes and imagery that was well beyond what was necessary or even interesting. Meanwhile the concept of the multiverse, while ever-intriguing, was poorly executed and did not draw you in at all.

The acting was passable, overall. Cumberbatch and Olsen were fairly good as always, but nothing groundbreaking here. The real story is how absolutely atrocious a job was done with America Chavez. It is unclear as to whether it is the fault of the actress: Xochitl Gomez, the writing team, or a combination of both, but this character was poorly executed from start to finish. America Chavez had the opportunity to be a very cool and interesting character in the MCU but they absolutely botched this introduction. Here's hoping they either kill her off quickly or do a better job with her next time around.

As mentioned, the one saving grace of the film was the animation and cinematography. As is the norm with marvel, this was executed near flawlessly and the film was very visually appealing. Bright colours and imaginative sets made the film a lot more enjoyable than it would have been. Again I'll mention my one caveat here is the constant use of satanic imagery throughout the film. When dealing with magic and witchcraft, it is to be expected that some satanic imagery would arise, but an overuse of this sort of thing creates over saturation and takes away from the overall quality of the film.

All in, I'm giving this a 3, verging on a 4 because of the great visuals and always enjoyable Cumberbatch and Olsen. The story was truly awful, and, recency bias acknowledged, I currently feel that this is the worst MCU film to date.