Doctor Strange – Review

Hello interweb, Nate here!  So yesterday I went and saw Doctor Strange on opening night and so I get to review it early!  So let’s not waste any more time and jump into it!  As always SPOILER WARNING for those of you who haven’t seen this film yet which very well might be most of you.

Movie Info

Movie Title: Doctor Strange

Produced by: Marvel Comics

Distributed by: Disney

Writer: Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill

Director: Scott Derrickson

Producer: Kevin Feige

Running Time: 1 hr 55 min

Review

Now I personally don’t know Doctor Strange as well as a lot of other superheroes.  I just haven’t read any of his comics so I really don’t know anything about him other than his origin story and the fact that he uses magic.  I’ve seen him in comics that he appears in beside his own such as some of Gerry Duggan’s Deadpool comics or that one Spider-man story that we must try to forget.  So because of this, I won’t be doing a lot of comparisons between the comic book Doctor Strange and the movie Doctor Strange since I have little knowledge of his comic book counterpart.

So how’s the story?  Well, Doctor Steven Strange is an amazing surgeon with a big ego to boot.  However, everything changed when the fire nation attacked!  Wait, no wrong story.  Things actually changed when Doctor Strange gets into a car accident resulting in severe damage to his hands and the inability to move the properly.  Because his hands are now paralyzed he can no longer be a surgeon and thus looks everywhere for a way to heal them.  This leads him to discover a woman referred to as the Ancient One who teaches Strange of the mystic arts.  During this process, a group of magic users comes to bring back the evil creature Dormammu.  Now Strange must defeat Dormammu and his minions before it’s too late!

The story feels a tad rushed at the beginning with how fast the car crash actually comes but otherwise it’s pretty good.  In terms of origin story movies,this may be one of the best ones out there beating Captain America: The First Avenger, Batman Begins, Ant-Man, and possibly even Spider-man in my mind.  The only origin story movie that probably beats this one in my mind is Deadpool but it would be pretty tough to beat that one.  In terms of comic book movies in general, the story isn’t quite as good as Deadpool or Captain America: Civil War but it is really high up there.

The action scenes are amazingly done and are very trippy to watch.  When they leave our dimension and go into the mirror dimension than they’re unable to effect the real world but they can actually warp the mirror dimention to their wishes.  That’s where all the buildings are flipping everywhere, hallways spin around, and streets get’s all three dimentional.  Basically any scene where the world around them seems to be twisting around and stuff they’re in the mirror dimention.  The magic they use also helps with the fun battles since they can use astral projection, whips made out of magical energy, magical shields that they can throw like Captain America, and certain objects even grants them with other abilities.  The red cape that you see Steven wearing is the Cape of Levitation and it has a mind of it’s own.  I’m not sure if the cape works the same way in the comics as it does here but it kind of reminds me of the magic carpet from Aladdin.  Apparently, the cape doesn’t work well with most people but since Strange is unusually gifted in the magical arts he’s able to use it.  The Eye of Agamotto is also used a lot to alter time and he even uses it in the climax to create a time loop.

Now onto the characters.  Dormmamu really didn’t do much until the final battle but he was really cool to see at the end of the movie.  His followers had more screen time but I can’t remember any of their names.  Which I think might be the biggest weakness to the film.  The villains are verry two-domentional and I don’t remember a lot about them.  They wanted to free Dormammu in order to end time so nobody can die because…I don’t remember.  Is the motive really that nobody will die?  I really can’t remember anything about them beyond that little bit.  They provided with fun action scenes and a great threat to Doctor Strange, I just can’t remember what that threat really was.  I mean they where bringing the Dark Dimension to Earth but again what does that accomplish?  Marvel has recieved criticism for their weak villains in the past but I think that’s partially why I like DC better.

Now Bennedict Cumberbatch plays Doctor Sterange and does a really good job with the role.  Strange is a lot like Tony Stark in just how much of an ego he has but he’s not quite as big of a jerk as Stark is which makes him more likable.  I mean there was that one scene between him and Christine (the love interest) but that was only when he was at his lowest point so I forgave him for that.  The only thing I do find a tad odd is that he’s a noob at all this magic stuff and yet he was able to defeat five different enemies at once in a certain scene.  Heck, if you would to watch nothing but the action scenes than you would expect him to be like the strongest wizard there.  Granted they did mention several times how “gifted” he is but I just always find it funny when the noob is able to beat a bunch of skilled characters simply because he’s “gifted” (although it’s really because he’s the protagonist).  Although it was cool to see him in full costume by the time the movie was over.  He even had his gloves on in the mid-credit scene!

Also I know it’s not technically a character but I just have to say it.  I love that cape!  It was adorable :3

The Ancient One is just a generic “I’m super wise and super old so I’ll teach you magic” type of character.  I didn’t find her all that interesting as a character, even after it was revealed she took power from the dark dimention (which is bad for some reason).

Karl Mordo was also a character that wasn’t too interesting besides his different oppinions that opposed how Strange used his magic but based on the end-credit scene I’m assuming he’s going to be the villain of the next Doctor Strange movie.

Overall this film was amazing to watch and I highly reccommend it to anyone who likes the MCU or enjoys magic.  Pretty much the best thing in the film was the visuals and action sequences since those where a blast to watch.  The only really interesting character was Strange himself (although to be fair he is the main character) but I still enjoyed him and I can’t wait to see him interact with the other MCU characters.  I especially want to see him interact with Tony Stark cause I wanna see the Awesome Facial Hair Bros in live action!