7 Times Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness Misses The Mark

Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez is a lot of fun in the role and no one could knock her performance. This makes it a shame then that the movie essentially makes her devolve into a deus ex machina plot device to help with Multiversal travel and little more.

In the comics, Chavez is a rich character but that's barely explored here, nor is her position as an LGBTQ+ character. Granted we do see her wearing a representative pin badge, and there's a small scene where we see how she lost her two mums, but it's a plot point which goes nowhere.

It's all a little lacklustre and half baked, and it would have been nice to give the character a bit more of a personality and background, rather than these blink and you'll miss it snippets which the character has no development with.

In the wake of the movie's release it was reported that certain countries were trying to cut only 12 seconds of content to meet their censoring. Thankfully Disney and Marvel remained firm on not cutting this material that referred to Chavez's sexuality, but it still shows how little representation actually features, even though the character has been marketed as such a breakthrough. It's good to have her identity acknowledged at all, but there's the feeling more could have been done. As is though, Chavez is disappointingly under-developed.

Even just a little more exploration would make moments like this feel so much more meaningful and rewarding.