This was fine. I don't think the MCU has an outright bad film. Just some below average ones at worst.
The CGI was really really bad. I was shocked. And no I don't have an 8k TV or anything but MoM looked worse than a lot of other relatively recent things I've streamed on my TV. Even things as simple as Strange flying. I said it yesterday, that opening scene was a hard watch. The CGI looking so bad affected some potentially cool things like the scene where Wanda shoots through the shield reflection. Stranger Things 4 just had a lot of body contortion SFX and it looked way better than that.
The pacing felt off even watching at home. Maybe it's because I knew the spoilers so maybe I can't ding it too much. But there were for sure a few times I was just checking my phone. Stuff like finding out America's origin or even main timeline's Christine's wedding could've been handled better in order to keep the movie going more quickly
The horror elements were cool, but they really pulled up on it. It's a common problem with SH movies where they're just like another genre whether it be horror movie, murder mystery, spy movie but then in the end they chicken out and don't go all the way with it. But yeah I liked the horror elements and just the Raimi-isms in general for he most part.
The action, despite the bad CGI, was pretty good. The Kamar-Taj was really cool. I was a bit disappointed by the music note scene. It wasn't as clever as some said it was. And it was really short. Sure, I guess it's the most interesting SH movie action scene in a bit. But that's not saying much because SH movie action has been lacking for a while imo.
There was a lot of bad dialogue. I usually don't notice too much exposition. But here it was bad. And then lines like "I'm not a monster I'm a mother." Yikes.
The multiverse concept wasn't explored enough. And it sucks that this came out around Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. Obviously 2 completely different types of movies. But to go from something that did the multiverse so well to MoM is like going from nice, grilled Bronzini to Filet o Fish. But even compared to Spider-Verse (which MoM did share some of the same elements) the multiverse in Multiverse of Madness felt so tame and limp. The Illuminati bit 1) killed the pacing 2) was very lackluster other than the Black Bolt and Reed deaths. Only 2 movies in, but it really seems like the MCU doesn't know what to do with it except for cheap fanservice and cameos.
Humor was too much in the first half like a lot of post 2014 MCU movies. You can be funny without being clownish, but a lot of movies don't seem to get that. In the second half, it was way more balanced while still being funny
Xochitl Gomez wasn't that good of an actress. She's only 14 so maybe she can improve, but she has no presence, charisma and some of her line reads were very awkward and poor "*Gasp* You're Killing Me" No I'm expecting Oscar worthy stuff. But there's a large gap between award winning and being bad. Gomez was way more toward the bad side. And the character herself lacked a lot of personality. The MCU still really has a problem writing women with interesting personalities. Just putting women in the movies isn't enough.
Olsen gave a good performance but I just dislike the character of Scarlet Witch. She does all this bad stuff and it's still "aw poor her". "Oh it was an accident" "Oh she's just a kid" "Oh well she lost her children" There's a problem with writing empathetic villains nowadays, men or women, where they lean too far into it. It's getting to the point of being more sympathetic. At the end of the day, these people are still villains killing hundreds of innocents on purpose. And I also didn't like how they kinda copped out with "The Darkhold corrupted her" The idea of a hero just going mad/evil from stress, loss, etc. is great but too many times they chicken out. Like Hal Jordan and Parallax.
Wish we got more of Wong and for sure more of Mordo. I would've loved if Mordo was still the ultimate big bad of the movie.
That's a lot more negative than positive, but I still think the movie is still passable. A lot of lost potential, but it overall is fine. But I can't imagine going out of my way to watch it again