Just to clarify, and this will be my last time doing so, it's not that Wanda's turn made no sense. I didn't say "WHAT?!? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!"
Her heel turn is perfectly logical and I knew it was coming, but it was still handled very poorly. They spent multiple movies building her as a hero. And I mean building her as one, since she did not start off as one. Multiple movies cementing a character on a journey that would, we assume, eventually go dark. But they skipped to the end. They missed a few chapters of that story and jumped to her not only being a villain, but then killing her off (I know, I know, she's probably not dead, but the story beat included her dying, so I'm counting it here). It was poorly executed, that's my complaint. It made it difficult for me (and apparently a lot of other people) to have much of an emotional investment in her arc in this movie. But again, that's not the biggest issue. Here are my main issues.
1) Dr. Strange has almost no arc, and almost no active role in this story. He's just kind of having things happen to him or around him or he's responding to things. I didn't walk away from this movie knowing more about him than I did before it began. The movie could've had Wong doing all of it and it wouldn't have made any difference since the CHARACTER of Strange isn't necessary to what happens other than it happening to have him in the beginning. They started the movie with some real potential with him. The idea of if he's happy is good. And it bookended on that as well, but there was nothing in the middle really touching it other than that one scene of his memory, which didn't really impact anything. It had potential, but was just dropped. Also the idea of "Couldn't you have made another play with Thanos?" Is a really cool idea to get inside his head, but they just very quickly dropped it. There were elements of potential Strange story arcs that were sprinkled (or jimmied) in, but none of them were developed at all. So I didn't really end up connecting with the titular hero.
2) The Illuminati scene. I walked in, like I assume many other people, kind of waiting for that scene to happen. We knew Captain Carter would be there, and Professor X and some firey flying thing, and then there's a ton of rumors. I knew Tom Cruise wasn't in it and I didn't expect him. I was LEGIT shocked (in a good way) when we saw Anson Mount as Black Bolt, as despite hating the show, I love that actor as that character, and loved that he got a second go at it. I was (less) shocked to see Reed Richards. And seeing the other Captain Marvel was very very cool. But they handled it the exact way I was scared they'd handle it in Spider-Man. Show up to get some applause and nothing else. They added NOTHING to the story at all but to get applause. They came, talked a little (one of them even less so) and then pretty quickly died. We didn't need to see that to know how powerful Wanda was as we already knew. It just made them all seem really dumb. Especially Reed Richards, the smartest man in the world. So you ended up with some VERY exciting cameos being reduced to meaningless applause moments and then quickly killing them off. You could literally remove the entire Illuminati scene and the movie would be no different what so ever. That's not a good sign. I didn't have a single emotional reaction with Black Bolt died, or Reed Richards, or Captain Marvel, or whomever. It just felt empty, and that is such a god damn shame.
3) What happened to all the MADNESS?!?! It's in the title. In the end, we get a 20-30 second shot of some legit multiversal madness. Then we get a lot of time on an earth I'd rather the MCU takes place on (where they have Avengers, Inhumans, and X-Men) and a few minutes on a dying world. That was it, right? Did I forget the madness? It was just so tame. As cool as it would have been, I didn't need 50 more cameos from Logan, and Deadpool, and Superman, and Willy Wonka or whatever.
4) The story just didn't take enough time to have any emotional impact. A lot of stuff happened that I'm supposed to care about. Strange having an existential crisis? Meh, barely in there, barely enough to notice or care about. America, while a VERY cool performance by a fantastic actress that I am excited to see more of, had little emotional impact because we spent maybe 20 seconds on her experiences. Wong? Just there. Dozens, if not more, scorerers are murdered? Move right along to the next scene. The entire Wanda arc as well. Lizzie did a god damn wonderful job with it. Bravo! But it was just so damn fast and empty that I never really connected.
And I say all of this, knowing it's my own experiences and not necessarily anyone elses, but after watching and reading a lot of other reviews, I am clearly not alone. This got one of Marvel's lowest cinema scores in history and it should have EASILY been a A or an A+.
I don't fully blame the writer/Marvel for this, cause I know COVID changed so much about this movie from conception to completion, that it might have been impossible to save.
That said, I still rank this movie in the top half of Marvel, and I had a REALLY good time watching most of it.
1) The acting is great, and I love the personality that Raimi was able to put in the movie as a director.
2) The movie is FILLED with absolutely brilliant scenes that I just wish were part of an overall better movie. The multiverse fall? Amazing. The Illuminati planet? Noice. The music fight? BRILLIANT! A cape made of demon ghost things? Genius. And even more I can't recall off the top of my head.
3) I loved America Chavez. I would love to spend more time with that character and give her some time to shine.
So yea, movie was filled with brilliant ideas and hints at a brilliant movie, but somehow, somewhere, it all got lost and we ended up with a big mess. Lots of cool and virtually no substance. I don't want Marvel to be like Transformers where it's just a ton of cool visuals and who cares what else. I have, and want to continue to care about what is happening and to whom it is happening.
That's all.