Buy it... if you love hearing Danny Elfman's most rambunctious action mode, his approach to this concept hyperactive, loud, dramatic, and defined totally by his familiar mannerisms.

Avoid it... if you are easily bothered by poor franchise continuity, Elfman abandoning Michael Giacchino's flair and shifting to an inferior new identity for the titular character while resurrecting an inappropriate theme from his past for the main villain.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: (Danny Elfman) Combining the existing Doctor Strange film series and "WandaVision" television show, 2022's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness exhausted audiences to massive box office success. This, the 28th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, devolves even further into the insanity of immersive eye candy for the franchise, reducing its story to incomprehensible and unsatisfying excuses for the visual feast. Its premise argues that the main storyline exists in version 616 of Earth and that there are countless other versions in the "multiverse," a concept that badly diminishes the importance and emotional impact of any one dimension and thus renders the characters and situations of this story somewhat pointless. Don't like what's happening in this dimension? Let's go over to version 237, where Donald J. Trump had perished in 2007 from choking on a Trump steak. Not good enough? Try version 491, where Trump perished in 1988 in a terrible accident on a golden toilet. This film fails to explore those realities, however, instead sending Dr. Stephen Strange and a teenage girl with the ability to traverse between these dimensions, America Chavez, on a chase through the multiverse to stop Wanda Maximoff's Scarlet Witch as she causes havoc in version 838 and beyond for her own personal reasons. All sorts of mystical elements come into play along the way, along with some MCU cameos. (Audiences are treated to seeing a Patrick Stewart character brutally killed. No Borg required.) Yanking audiences around for this venture is director Sam Raimi, whose entrance to the concept brought composer Danny Elfman along by default. The Michael Giacchino score for 2016's Doctor Strange was one of that composer's better works, combining highly unique instrumental character with a better-than-average superhero theme for Strange himself. This material continued in Giacchino's Spider-Man: No Way Home, though not as strikingly as hoped. The career interplay between Elfman and Giacchino led the latter to utilize the former's original Spider-Man theme in that score, and Elfman was, with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, presented the opportunity to return the favor.

Elfman, even more a veteran of the superhero genre than Giacchino, maintains interesting philosophies about other composers' themes for the same concepts for which he has written musical identities. It suffices to say that Elfman has a high opinion about his superhero themes. Sometimes, as with the Batman and Spider-Man characters, this confidence is well-founded. At others, as now heard in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Elfman fails to meet the standards of an already-existing musical identity by replacing it with an inferior version of his own. The composer remains highly cognizant of the fact that the MCU has become a playground of musical cross-references, token quotes of Alan Silvestri music almost a requirement. For this 2022 entry, Elfman was faced with a monumental set of themes and instrumental styles he could adapt, and he did make a concerted effort to include a variety of references to other composers' works. He indeed makes use of Giacchino's main theme from Doctor Strange, and joining that are brief references to WandaVision music, a vintage "X-Men" tune, and the obligatory Silvestri insertion. But none of these applications has any significant impact on the score, the Giacchino material badly marginalized and the other usage serving as pinpointed cameos only. Rather, Elfman takes it upon himself to rewrite the musical identities of both Strange and Wanda, essentially establishing his own alternatives for these characters after giving marginal nods to their existing themes. While this choice could be successful with Wanda's character, the ultimate abandonment of the Giacchino tone and theme for Strange is entirely unacceptable. None of the unique instrumental quirkiness identified with the character, courtesy sitar and harpsichord, is obliged, Elfman instead rooting the sound of this score firmly in his own blend of comfort zone sounds ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Men in Black, Mars Attacks!, Batman Returns, and Justice League. A fair number of techniques from Spider-Man is not unexpected, either. This is an absolutely pure Elfman score from start to finish, and judged as such, it's a fairly decent entry. There's a mixture of outstanding action and drama sequences with several largely unpleasant or annoyingly pounding cues of suspense and psychedelia.

Those not offended by Elfman's poor strategic decisions for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will appreciate the rambunctious orchestral, electronic, and choral spirit of the score, its attitude often melodramatic or aggressively postured. The work also features some intriguing instrumental applications, particularly in trilling brass and sinewy strings. Among the composer's best techniques is the use of low brass in unison to really reinforce a muscular baseline, and, as in Alice in Wonderland, he utilizes these players to milk the appeal of heavy, descending minor-third progressions throughout. The brass performances in general are excellent in this score, their layering at all pitches quite adept. The choir, conversely, is slathered on for the multiverse fantasy, and it proves itself obnoxious all too often. Elfman tends to cap off crescendos with rising pitch choral and string stingers that are highly annoying, and his reprise of vintage "la la"-style vocals in the opening and closing cues sounds dated. No adequate replacement instrumental sound for Strange is offered, effectively neutralizing his musical identity completely. The thematic situation doesn't help, as Elfman, for whatever reason, decided to create a new Strange theme but not utilize it until after several perfunctory applications of the Giacchino theme in the first half of the film. The Giacchino theme for the character is catchier than Elfman's alternative, though part of that problem stems from the fact that Elfman's themes for this movie all start with a similar ascending phrase and don't often receive satisfactory enunciation, especially in the case of the new Strange theme. That motif features staccato four or three-note phrases up and down, and while these progressions are easy to manipulate into action sequences and counterpoint, the character requires a more sophisticated, longer-lined identity. These stuttering phrases struggle to emerge militaristically at 1:11 into "Multiverse of Madness" before partially closing out the cue with attempted Spider-Man bravado. Elfman introduces more of the theme in agony at 0:59 into "On the Run" but does little to clarify it in subsequent scenes. It tries but fails to overtake the Wanda theme on piano in "Are You Happy," reduces to heroic, two-note phrases in the middle of "Gargantos" (though it achieves a fuller stance at the end of that cue), and turns deformed and monstrous at 0:38 into "Forbidden Ground."

The new theme by Elfman for Strange finally begins to assert some value to the latter half of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness once Giacchino's franchise theme is dispensed with. The Elfman replacement is used well as counterpoint in the middle of "Stranger Things Will Happen" and clarifies at 1:50 in that cue with cool suspense, defining the crescendo at its end. The idea mingles with the America theme at the start of "Buying Time," is barely evident at the outset of "Looking for Strange," returns as a counterpoint-like figure throughout "Getting Through," and finally achieves its purpose as it defines the action of "Only Way," where a major performance at 0:56 allows the theme to drive the cue thereafter. Elfman retreats a bit from this theme in the conclusive cues, however, only barely informing the start of "An Interesting Question" with it and straying closer in instrumentation to Men in Black than Giacchino's foundation. While the theme opens the thematic suite at 0:15 into "Main Titles," its performance here is skittish and doesn't bookend the cue after the other themes. Adding to the mystery of this new theme is Elfman's unsatisfying usage of the superior Giacchino identity for Strange. It's inserted briefly in the action at 0:17 and 0:36 in "On the Run" and opens "Gargantos" with several phrases, albeit too rushed. The idea is unnecessarily slight at 0:25 into "Strange Statue" and achieves its only significant presence on noble brass at 1:51 into "Battle Time," followed by the idea's biggest ensemble performance. Elfman forces a fragment of the theme violently against the Wanda theme at 1:56 into "Not a Monster" but totally abandons it thereafter. The loss of this franchise theme halfway through the score, and particularly its absence from "Only Way" and "An Interesting Question," is alone highly problematic and awkward. But Elfman compounds his mistake by offering the character no unique instrumental foundation as Giacchino had done with the sitar and harpsichord, the quasi-classical and Eastern tones replaced here with no unique personality whatsoever. It's as if Strange has been reduced to simply another generic superhero with none of the exotic and elevated allure that Giacchino had brought to that character. The Elfman theme and instrumental palette could have existed just as well for a variety of other Marvel characters, and its generic posturing isn't obvious enough to make the average movie-goer hum the theme as he or she leaves the cinema.