It’s opening night and the theater is packed with fans eager to witness the next big project from Marvel: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This highly anticipated closure to phase four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was released on May 6 and has already brought in over $800 million to the box office worldwide.

In order to understand this movie, knowledge of previous events from other Marvel shows and movies is needed. Watching the Disney+ series, WandaVision, is especially important, as one of the main characters’ storyline is continued on in this movie.

Spoilers Ahead: Doctor Strange in a Multiverse of Madness followed the story of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) meeting a new being of power, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who is being chased by a monster who wants to kidnap her for her abilities to travel the multiverse. It turns out that Wanda, or the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), has sent this monster as a way for her to get the powers of Chavez and find another multiverse in which her kids are alive and real.

This movie also has cameos from characters in previous Marvel projects, the popular X-Men series and the Fantastic Four, which is made possible due to the multiversal element of the movie that allows the merging of these characters in the new group, the illuminati. This includes the most well-known Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Mister Fantastic from the Fantastic Four (John Krasinski), a female Captain America (Hayley Atwell), and Black Bolt (Anson Mount).

The ratings for this movie are high. The critics’ rating is lower than the audience’s, with a 74% and 86% on the tomatometer respectively. Overall, there are positive and satisfied reviews of the movie.

However, there are disappointed viewers whose tall expectations were not met. “I didn’t think it was as good as I expected, the plot could’ve been way better and I didn’t expect Wanda to be a villain,” senior Ted Otengo said.

The director, Sam Raimi, also directed the original Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire, but hadn’t directed any of the recent Marvel projects. “It’s so good to see Raimi with an enormous canvas, plying his trade in formalist glories, not limited to action scenes with capital coherence and camera moves that are the essence of swoon,” movie reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes Ray Pride said.

This movie is more psychological, darker, and spooky than previous Marvel movies, which is partly due to Raimi’s directing. It also has more disturbing scenes, is more gory, and is immensely more emotional than other movies, which makes fans see a different side of Marvel storytelling. 

More in store for Marvel includes Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which are all coming out within the next year.