Doctor Strange
Movie Review
Doctor Strange is a Big Mac that someone spiked the special sauce with LSD. By that I mean that Doctor Strange is possibly Marvel’s most derivative and formulaic movie yet, but it just so happens to contain a little shot of absolutely brilliant insanity thrown in. It’s a frustrating cocktail but entertaining regardless.
The main problem with Doctor Strange is that it’s the shortest Marvel movie yet. Not just in run-time either, although a 115 minute run-time is pretty odd to see in today movie market. It isn’t so much that Doctor Strange just feels like it’s hitting the basic Marvel movie beats, but that that’s ALL it’s hitting. There’s so little meat in between the bones of Doctor Strange that I’m really confused as to why this wasn’t just dropped on Netflix. It’s not even that it feels like this movie is missing entire scene’s or anything like Suicide Squad; it’s definitely a complete movie, just a very short one. The movie knows its only really serving the purpose of setting up things and characters Marvel is probably going to use later, and I’m a little sad that’s all it really ends up being (although kudos to the first end credits sequence for actually giving us a direct look at how). As such, Doctor Strange ends up feeling like the perfect Phase 1 movie, and that can’t help but stick out like a sore thumb when we’re already on Phase 3 and we’ve just started seeing all that Phase 1 potential start to pay off.
What’s interesting is that even though a lot of the actual material of Doctor Strange is bare-bones, it’s not really badly done. All though I don’t think anything in this movie gets the full, enriching development I usually like, there isn’t really a bad piece here. The actual character of Strange isn’t just “Magic Iron Man” as I was fearing; instead it’s “Magic Iron Man” but with the arrogance and awkwardness dialed way up. For about the first 1/3 of the movie, he’s genuinely unlikable. It actually adds a uniqueness and distinction to his character that feels very welcome, and Benedict Cumberbatch sells the heck out of it. I can’t wait to see how he actually interacts with other Avengers in the future. The supporting characters are also really fun. For the amount of screen time they receive, they manage to all feel like real three-dimensional human beings that have lives outside of the movie. This is mostly down to how tight the script actually is. For however story-lite it may be, the movie has a very great understanding of its characters. Even the villain seems like he actually could’ve been one of Marvel’s legitimately interesting villains had the movie not been in such a rush.
The real thing that saves Doctor Strange from being “just another Marvel movie,” is the actual magic itself. It’s not only brilliantly visualized with some of the best CGI Marvel’s ever put out, but the actual creativity on display here is enough to make me stand up and cheer. Part of that is mostly from the fact that instead of having characters stand-around and flesh out the minutia of how everything works, the movie really just prefers to show you and let you fill in the gaps. This leads to a number trippy visual sequences and incredibly creative action scene’s that more or less make the price of the admission ticket worth it. I kid you not, you have probably never seen stuff like some of the fight scene’s they create towards the end. To that end I really can’t blame the movie for wanting to rush everything else just to get to the action, since the action and visual sequences are just that good. I’d totally recommend seeing this in 3D or IMAX just for how cool this stuff actually gets.
Doctor Strange isn’t bad at all, just one of the weaker Marvel movie’s overall. Maybe it wouldn’t suffer so much if it hadn’t been structured like a typical Marvel origin movie, but I can’t really ignore that a lot of these flaws are flaws that Marvel really needs to start addressing. Still, it’s been a slow fall movie season, you’re probably gonna see this anyway, so at least know you’re in for a visual treat.
Movie Review
Doctor Strange is a Big Mac that someone spiked the special sauce with LSD. By that I mean that Doctor Strange is possibly Marvel’s most derivative and formulaic movie yet, but it just so happens to contain a little shot of absolutely brilliant insanity thrown in. It’s a frustrating cocktail but entertaining regardless.
The main problem with Doctor Strange is that it’s the shortest Marvel movie yet. Not just in run-time either, although a 115 minute run-time is pretty odd to see in today movie market. It isn’t so much that Doctor Strange just feels like it’s hitting the basic Marvel movie beats, but that that’s ALL it’s hitting. There’s so little meat in between the bones of Doctor Strange that I’m really confused as to why this wasn’t just dropped on Netflix. It’s not even that it feels like this movie is missing entire scene’s or anything like Suicide Squad; it’s definitely a complete movie, just a very short one. The movie knows its only really serving the purpose of setting up things and characters Marvel is probably going to use later, and I’m a little sad that’s all it really ends up being (although kudos to the first end credits sequence for actually giving us a direct look at how). As such, Doctor Strange ends up feeling like the perfect Phase 1 movie, and that can’t help but stick out like a sore thumb when we’re already on Phase 3 and we’ve just started seeing all that Phase 1 potential start to pay off.
The main problem with Doctor Strange is that it’s the shortest Marvel movie yet. Not just in run-time either, although a 115 minute run-time is pretty odd to see in today movie market. It isn’t so much that Doctor Strange just feels like it’s hitting the basic Marvel movie beats, but that that’s ALL it’s hitting. There’s so little meat in between the bones of Doctor Strange that I’m really confused as to why this wasn’t just dropped on Netflix. It’s not even that it feels like this movie is missing entire scene’s or anything like Suicide Squad; it’s definitely a complete movie, just a very short one. The movie knows its only really serving the purpose of setting up things and characters Marvel is probably going to use later, and I’m a little sad that’s all it really ends up being (although kudos to the first end credits sequence for actually giving us a direct look at how). As such, Doctor Strange ends up feeling like the perfect Phase 1 movie, and that can’t help but stick out like a sore thumb when we’re already on Phase 3 and we’ve just started seeing all that Phase 1 potential start to pay off.
What’s interesting is that even though a lot of the actual material of Doctor Strange is bare-bones, it’s not really badly done. All though I don’t think anything in this movie gets the full, enriching development I usually like, there isn’t really a bad piece here. The actual character of Strange isn’t just “Magic Iron Man” as I was fearing; instead it’s “Magic Iron Man” but with the arrogance and awkwardness dialed way up. For about the first 1/3 of the movie, he’s genuinely unlikable. It actually adds a uniqueness and distinction to his character that feels very welcome, and Benedict Cumberbatch sells the heck out of it. I can’t wait to see how he actually interacts with other Avengers in the future. The supporting characters are also really fun. For the amount of screen time they receive, they manage to all feel like real three-dimensional human beings that have lives outside of the movie. This is mostly down to how tight the script actually is. For however story-lite it may be, the movie has a very great understanding of its characters. Even the villain seems like he actually could’ve been one of Marvel’s legitimately interesting villains had the movie not been in such a rush.
The real thing that saves Doctor Strange from being “just another Marvel movie,” is the actual magic itself. It’s not only brilliantly visualized with some of the best CGI Marvel’s ever put out, but the actual creativity on display here is enough to make me stand up and cheer. Part of that is mostly from the fact that instead of having characters stand-around and flesh out the minutia of how everything works, the movie really just prefers to show you and let you fill in the gaps. This leads to a number trippy visual sequences and incredibly creative action scene’s that more or less make the price of the admission ticket worth it. I kid you not, you have probably never seen stuff like some of the fight scene’s they create towards the end. To that end I really can’t blame the movie for wanting to rush everything else just to get to the action, since the action and visual sequences are just that good. I’d totally recommend seeing this in 3D or IMAX just for how cool this stuff actually gets.
Doctor Strange isn’t bad at all, just one of the weaker Marvel movie’s overall. Maybe it wouldn’t suffer so much if it hadn’t been structured like a typical Marvel origin movie, but I can’t really ignore that a lot of these flaws are flaws that Marvel really needs to start addressing. Still, it’s been a slow fall movie season, you’re probably gonna see this anyway, so at least know you’re in for a visual treat.
The real thing that saves Doctor Strange from being “just another Marvel movie,” is the actual magic itself. It’s not only brilliantly visualized with some of the best CGI Marvel’s ever put out, but the actual creativity on display here is enough to make me stand up and cheer. Part of that is mostly from the fact that instead of having characters stand-around and flesh out the minutia of how everything works, the movie really just prefers to show you and let you fill in the gaps. This leads to a number trippy visual sequences and incredibly creative action scene’s that more or less make the price of the admission ticket worth it. I kid you not, you have probably never seen stuff like some of the fight scene’s they create towards the end. To that end I really can’t blame the movie for wanting to rush everything else just to get to the action, since the action and visual sequences are just that good. I’d totally recommend seeing this in 3D or IMAX just for how cool this stuff actually gets.
Doctor Strange isn’t bad at all, just one of the weaker Marvel movie’s overall. Maybe it wouldn’t suffer so much if it hadn’t been structured like a typical Marvel origin movie, but I can’t really ignore that a lot of these flaws are flaws that Marvel really needs to start addressing. Still, it’s been a slow fall movie season, you’re probably gonna see this anyway, so at least know you’re in for a visual treat.
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