Doctor Strange: Basically Iron Man But With Magic Powers

[commandercool]

Anybody else see the Doctor Strange movie?

I saw it last night and liked it okay. I think I liked it the least of anyone I've talked to so far, but that doesn't mean I disliked it at all. The effects are absolutely nuts and the script is decent, although I really wish they had cut five minutes of effects shots for some more goofin' around.

The real question with this property was "How are they going to seamlessly integrate magic powers into the Marvel universe?" since despite the presence of Scarlet Witch and the Thor cast the Marvel movies are a heavily sci-fi franchise. And that went very well I think. This new world blends into the rest of Marvel very well.

This was probably my least favorite Marvel movie since Thor 2 given the slightly slow and weird pacing and what I thought was a sliiightly bland performance from Cumberbatch, but I'm in the minority in thinking that.

Spoiler:

Given that my biggest problem with these movies is that they all have the same ending I give a lot of credit to the fact that the ending, like in Guardians, is not really a fight scene. It's pretty silly, but in a good way. So many bonus points for that.

[BT]

I've heard from friends that it's """amazing""". Honestly I don't have much of a frame of reference for Marvel movies, but I'll probably watch this sometime soon.

[Reddyne]

Doctor Strange: Somewhere between Batman Begins, Inception, The Matrix, and I dunno maybe something H.P. Lovecraft-ish.

Overall, the movie felt really familiar from a Marvel Movie Universe standpoint. Introduction of characters and world in which they live, origin story, villain introduced, hero challenged, climax, conclusion, all well tailored around familiar narrative and style that has suited these movies so well because of how well it works. Strange as a character might come off as a bit too much like Tony Stark in the way that they're both cocky successful guys who are laid low by their own actions but use their fall as a pivot point in their lives to sorta better themselves (and become superheroes in the process), but Strange still does enough to feel like his own person. BC did well enough but I can see why people thought he was a bit dry. Still, all the major good superhero movie boxes were checked and it was a great ride. Special mention for it being real easy to like and understand some of the characters. Maybe a little bit more backstory/explanation into motives/mindsets and such could have helped but at the end of the day you have to sandwich seven boatloads of characters/story/lore/mythos into a 2 hour time slot.

The effects ARE crazy and even when things became downright nutters, I thought that the people who made the movie still knew how to shift focus from the visuals (which I saw as a bit of a vector for conveying how bizarre and surreal powers could be and how we don't fully comprehend how the world works) to the characters and back again when the moment struck.

All in all it was a lot of fun though that may be due in part to me not knowing this corner of Marvel all that well. Still, I think that's the way it is with a lot of people. For what it's worth, I think it was a comfortable Marvel movie romp with its own identity.

Also oh crap

Spoiler:

apparently there were two after credit scenes? Or so I hear. Whoops. I should've stuck with my intuition on this one.

[commandercool]

Also oh crap

Spoiler:

apparently there were two after credit scenes? Or so I hear. Whoops. I should've stuck with my intuition on this one.

The first was

Spoiler:

Strange and Thor hanging out and deciding to hunt down Loki together, since apparently Thor knows he's alive again somehow.

The second was

Spoiler:

Mordo finding and re-crippling that paralyzed basketball guy, since apparently he's now a zealous guardian of the natural order who hunts down magic users and steals their magic power.

[Reddyne]

The first was

Spoiler:

Strange and Thor hanging out and deciding to hunt down Loki together, since apparently Thor knows he's alive again somehow.

The second was

Spoiler:

Mordo finding and re-crippling that paralyzed basketball guy, since apparently he's now a zealous guardian of the natural order who hunts down magic users and steals their magic power.

I missed the second one. They've been doing this for so long that I figured they just wanted to get it done once people knew the movie was over. :V

I mean

Spoiler:

Mordo's eventually a bad guy anyway so might as well get that in so people can expect a direct sequel.

[Your Everyday NEET]

Doctor Strange. Despite being Marvel's next film after Civil War, it manages to be a good film in it's own right. Everyone could say that it's effects are extremely good. It makes Inception looks amateur. And despite the controversial casting of Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One, she can proves herself as the best character in the whole film by being the best combatant in the whole film and perfectly nailing her role as a mysterious, yet kind master. These are the things I liked.

I do have a lot of nitpicks about it. The main villain, Kaecillius seems to be generic, yet overpowered to the point anyone that is not The Ancient One could only run away. Doctor Strange himself seems to be the worst combatant in the movie (granted, he only hasn't mastered the art of magic). Wong is the master of Hongkong Sanctum, yet the movie never show him fight. The pacing is noticeably slow. While the effects are fantastic, the fight scene itself can be a little hard to follow (to the point I need to watch the movie twice to understand it). These are some of my nitpicks.

Despite my nitpicks, I still like the movie to the point where I reference it twice. I Ragequit my GoS Let's Play using Doctor Strange reference. I think both Doctor Strange and GoS Big Bad has some similarities: Both of them is an Elritch Abomination from other dimension, both of them almost has no personality except being evil, both of them are horrendously overpowered, and both of them can one hit kill the protagonist in lot's of different way. The only difference is that

Spoiler:

while Dormammu can be bargained, The Embodiment of Hatred CANNOT

. So I ragequit.

My theater and most of the audience is my city doesn't know that there's a second stinger after the credit. So, after the first stinger, everyone rushed out of the theater and seeing there's almost no audience, the staff shut off the projector. Blah!

[Reddyne]

I did like The Ancient One as she (in the film) was presented and I felt her qualities and mentality were put forward far more than any other aspect of her character, making the whole gender thing a non-issue.

Kaecillius WAS too generic. I had to read up on all sorts of stuff just to find some sort of backstory on him.

Spoiler:

Apparently his wife and child died and that was motivation for him to cheat death? Maybe? Still, I would think the villain would want to check the fine print before getting the PG-13 version of the Raiders of the Lost Ark treatment.

[commandercool]

I did like The Ancient One as she (in the film) was presented and I felt her qualities and mentality were put forward far more than any other aspect of her character, making the whole gender thing a non-issue.

Yeah, that's complicated. I've seen the point made that at least this way it's not the "White guy shows up and turns out to be the prodigy who outdoes all of the Asian characters at their own game" (just like we're already going to get in Iron Fist), but that kind of overlooks the added problem of "So all Sorcerer Supremes are white?". Tilda Swinton definitely hit it out of the park though. This might have been the best overall cast for a single-character Marvel movie ever aside from my not being thaaat into Cumberbatch, but I know a lot of people were, so fair enough.

Kaecillius WAS too generic. I had to read up on all sorts of stuff just to find some sort of backstory on him.

Spoiler:

Apparently his wife and child died and that was motivation for him to cheat death? Maybe? Still, I would think the villain would want to check the fine print before getting the PG-13 version of the Raiders of the Lost Ark treatment.

That was actually in the movie. It's mentioned in a throwaway line, or at least heavily implied. Just like some stuff was heavily implied about Mordo that was never really spelled out.