Doctor Strange

I'm not going to lie. I ended up seeing this movie twice during the opening weekend. This was because I was seeing it with two sets of friends, but I still went gladly. I was going to write about it sooner, but life got in the way.

So yeah, I liked this movie. On my personal rankings of the Marvel movies, it's definitely somewhere in the middle. That's not a bad thing, you just have to remember that we are about fourteen movies deep now.

Like, Ant-Man, this was a character that felt like having their own movie would be an overreach. Thankfully I think they stick the landing. It perfectly nails the trippy, LSD fueled antics of the comics. This is exactly where it needed to be. The visuals are pretty amazing. However, I still do and will always hate CG "stuntmen". This happens a number of times in this movie and it's so hard for me to ignore it when I see it.

The fight scenes are pretty good, because for some reason, magicians rely on martial arts. I'm not complaining, I just want to point that out. Probably because that's a lot more exciting than watching people throw spells back and forth.

I'll get to the actors in a moment, but I'm going to start with the plot first. This movie moves quickly to establish Dr. Strange. I applaud this. Instead of spending half the movie with his origin, we get through that in about fifteen minutes and then we follow him on, let's say, his spiritual journey. On the flip side, it is way too convenient that he becomes as good as he does so quickly. They don't do a good job with the time lapse to know how quickly he picked things up. This movie does follow Marvel Movie plot #2,evil bad guy wants to control the world for murky reasons.

I want to point out that the problem I've had with the Marvel movies rears it's ugly head again. In their movies, the villains have been one note and essentially throw aways. That is the case here too. To name check it, the villain's name is Kaecillius. All he needed was a mustache to twirl. He's not compelling in any way. The after credits scene does provide a glimpse into what will be a better villain for the next movie.

Okay, so maybe that was a very short plot description. There isn't really much to cover there. So let's go with the actors. Benedict Cumberbatch delivers, as we thought he would. I don't mind his American accent here because it makes it feel like a different character from him. His trademark deep voice is even noticeably gone. Which is more impressive that he could hold the voice of the character here. I've become a fan of Tilda Swinton over the years and I think this movie helps cement that. There was controversy over her being cast in this role, but I hope this movie helps alleviate that. It's not her fault. She's put in a difficult position and I think she succeeds. She carries this role with a gravitas and grace. I bet she must have had some fun with the martial arts choreography. It is always great to see Chiwetel Ejiofor appear and he was great in this. I think the only problem I had was Rachel McAdams. She is just wasted in a thankless role in this movie. She is the love/not love interest and that is all she brings. It's unfortunate. On that same note, they waste Mads Mikkelsen as the aforementioned Kaecillius too. Why even bother using great actors for these roles?

To wrap this up, I don't have much else to say really. It was good. I didn't catch a lot of easter eggs here, except for the Stan Lee cameo, which we are conditioned to look for at this point. I am glad that this movie will be successful and add another character to the movie library. Definitely check it out.