“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is a complete triumph in many ways. Anchored by strong storytelling, the film boasts beautiful visual effects and production design. A conflicted villain adds pathos to the tale in a brilliant touch.

The movie opens with America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) and a version of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) escaping from a demon in what looks like a confusion of geometric shapes. They are trying to reach the Book of Vishanti when Strange, knowing that the demon wants to absorb America’s power, decides he needs to kill her for the greater good. He is mortally wounded by the creature when a portal opens up and America and Strange are transported elsewhere. Our Doctor Strange wakes up and realizes that this was a dream.

We next see Strange at a wedding of his former love Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) to another man. A commotion occurs outside as an unseen force throws vehicles around. Strange makes the one-eyed giant octopoid creature visible. He is joined by the Sorcerer Supreme Wong (Benedict Wong) as they battle the intruder. As a bus is upended, America is rescued by Doctor Strange.

After the creature is defeated, Strange realizes that America was in his dream. America reveals that she can jump between the multiverses, although she cannot control her power. She also indicates that dreams are visits to other versions of ourselves in the multiverse. Strange describes the markings on the creature in his dream as runes. Wong and he decide that they indicate witchcraft is at play.

In a cut to a scene that looks straight out of “WandaVision,” Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) is interacting with her two children. Things are going pleasantly when Wanda wakes up and realizes that this was just a dream.

She is tending to apple trees in a pleasant, sunny orchard when Strange appears and asks for her help with America and her plight. When she says America’s name before Strange reveals it to her, she realizes that the jig is up and transforms the orchard into a wasteland.

Wanda is now the Scarlet Witch. She has been using the Darkhold to create demons to chase America to try to gain her power of transporting between multiverses. Wanda wants to go to a multiverse where her children are alive. She also does not just want to use the power, she wants to kill America to possess it for herself in case her kids get sick and need to go to another multiverse for a cure.

She gives Strange an ultimatum to surrender the girl by a certain deadline. Strange returns to the stronghold of Kamar-Taj where Wong has taken America. When the deadline arrives, so does the Scarlet Witch. At first the defenders of Kamar-Taj seem to have the upper hand, but the Witch’s powers are too strong and they are soon defeated.

Strange and America manage to escape through a portal to a very futuristic-looking Manhattan in another multiverse. But Wanda can use “dream-walking” into another version of herself in that multiverse to pursue them. Soon they are taken prisoner by an alternate Christine and meet the Illuminati.

I thought that this would be just another Marvel movie. I had been disappointed by “Spider-Man: No Way Home” because, while its concept was good, the story was drawn out, had too many characters who were not fully realized, and had weak dialogue.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” shows the difference between having a good concept and a good story. I always say that it is the screenplay that makes all the difference in distinguishing a mediocre picture from a great one. I was never once bored during this screening.

It would be easy for a screenwriter to use the various multiverses as dei ex machina, a convenient way to fill holes in the script. The use of the multiverse in this “Doctor Strange” is so organic that you never feel that they are being abused as a plot device. Furthermore, the motion of characters between the multiverses do not provide convenient solutions to the story as the characters are still vulnerable.

That Wanda longs to be with her children again makes her a sympathetic character despite her egregious malevolence. Everyone can relate to this type of bond and the loss of her loved ones in the current multiverse. Seeing Wanda with her kids again was so satisfying to me. The denouement involving her children was a masterstroke of writing that will stay with me for a long time.

Elizabeth Olsen shines in this role. Her shifts between the loving Wanda in various multiverses and the evil Scarlet Witch, sometimes inhabiting another Wanda through dream-walking, are pitch perfect.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Strange also shows his great range. He is convincing as an imperfect person who has lost in love across multiple multiverses. His impulsiveness that sometimes causes harm to others provides a parallel in some ways to the Scarlet Witch. Cumberbatch has to carry the movie and he does so artfully.

What can you say about the visual effects other than that they are extraordinary even by Marvel standards? The multiverse where everyone looks like paint or the battle of musical notes between 2 Stranges are beautifully rendered.

The production design and the costumes are all first-rate. The editing was so concise. This film could have been very long but clocks in at less than two and a half hours that race by. The score by Danny Elfman added so much to the picture.

This is a film that I will need to watch multiple times to catch all the nuances of Marvel lore. The screening audience would audibly gasp when some new twist, such as the Illuminati, was revealed.

The film is rated PG-13, and this seems appropriate to me. There is spilling of blood and scary scenes that would frighten younger children.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” seems like an unfortunate capitulation to alliteration to me, as I don’t consider the shifts between multiverses to be “madness.” But regardless of the title, this is a triumph for director Sam Raimi (“Evil Dead,” “Darkman,” the first Spider-Man trilogy).

Five out of five stars

In Marvel Studios’ “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the MCU unlocks the Multiverse and pushes its boundaries further than ever before. Journey into the unknown with Doctor Strange, who, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg, Rachel McAdams
Directed by Sam Raimi
Written by Michael Waldron