The spookiest of the Avengers has his sequel. Not only does it add to his backstory, but successfully reboots the entire MCU so it can now go in pretty much any direction Kevin Feige deems sensical & profitable. (MULTIPLE SPOILERS AHEAD!)

We’ve seen the live action multiverse before in Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame & Spider-Man: No Way Home. This film kicks the multiple doors of perception wide open. Dr. Strange gets to meet many version of himself and even embody one of his corpses. Try to get that concept out of your brain, my fellow weedheads! Now that these new rules of storytelling have been laid down, it is a hell of lot simpler to drop anything into any story. Tony Stark died for humanity near the end of Endgame, but wait a second! In this part of the multiverse over here, he’s raising his daughter and maybe over there he’s become a full blow alcoholic. Marvel is finally able to include some of its shiny new properties it got when it acquired Fox. Briefly, X-Men’s Professor X and Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards makes appearances. They are both quickly & unceremoniously dispatched.

Benedict Cumberbatch takes the role seriously enough, but we still get the occasional wink to show he knows that we know this is all slightly absurd, but he’s glad we came along. My short term memory is not powerful enough to make me forget the linchpin of the plot. The pain & rage of Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch is heartbreaking, frightening and very believable. Elizabeth Olson really was able to move into her character in WandaVision. She was given a lot more to do in that series, but damn, she is so good here.

So give me a metaphysical plot which dodges & weaves in such a way that I have to decide to be high & confused or high & super focused. Either way, you win. This is streaming on Disney+ so you can try it at any speed you want. Now where did I put those mushrooms?