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Doctor Strange Film Review
Dec. 5th, 2018 08:45 pm**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**
So, after saying I’d write a review for this film for ACTUAL AGES, I’ve finally decided to actually sit down and WRITE IT. O_O So without further ado, here we go!
I guess I’ll start with what I did like about the film, just for positivity’s sake. The acting was very well done, for one; since I’ve watched quite a lot of BBC Sherlock I worried I’d have a hard time seeing Benedict Cumberbatch as anything other than “American Sorcery-Wielding Sherlock Holmes”, and at first there was a little of that just because of shared personality traits between the two characters. But as the film went on Strange really started feeling like his own character, and Cumberbatch did a great job in portraying that. But he wasn’t the only good acting performance, all of the supporting cast did a great job with what they were given and made the characters enjoyable.
Another thing I liked was the atmosphere and music. The atmosphere felt a lot darker than the other MCU films, partially just because of the lighting and camera work, but also because while there was still a fair share of MCU-style humor, most instances to me felt like a small, brief lightening of an otherwise dark mood for everyone, which I personally really liked. And the soundtrack was AMAZING, honestly I’ve never enjoyed waiting through the credits in an MCU film as much as I did for Doctor Strange, the music was SO GOOD. So that’s a definite plus.
The effects, just like everyone says, were AMAZING. But they were particularly enjoyable to me because they were used in conjuction with two of my favorite things: MAGIC SWIRLIES OF DESTRUCTION and ACTION SEQUENCES. One of my main complaints (or, well, one of them) for the MCU is there has not been enough utilization of sorcery - Loki has been in 3 FILMS and GODS are just accepted as existing yet there has been a serious deficiency of magical battles, which is WHAT I’M HERE FOR. So I was extremely glad with how thoroughly Doctor Strange delivered on this front, which in turn made the action way more exciting to me (it was also well choregraphed/directed I thought).
I also just really liked Stephen Strange himself. I though his character development was well-paced and believable, that it wasn’t just “he knows magic now so he’s cured of his arrogance and self-centered way of thinking”, but you could see him making progress throughout the film until finally, only by the end is has he reached a point where he’s willing to make the selfless choice and let himself be killed repeatedly forever to keep humanity safe. There a multiple points throughout the film where he thinks he’s changed, he’s better, only to have it pointed out that while he’s made progress, he still has elements of his old way of thinking left over and hasn’t FULLY changed into a Real Hero yet, which I really liked because the MCU has a tendency to rush redemption arcs for main characters (ie Thor, and to a lesser extent Iron Man).
Finally, I actually liked the villain. Yes, he didn’t much in the way of backstory or even dialouge, but unlike the other MCU villains that share those traits Kaecillius had a freaking AWESOME presence that I just liked.
But all that being said, the movies wasn’t without its flaws. As much as I loved Stephen Strange’s character arch, he’s the only character in the whole movie that I can say that about. Every other character felt like a background character, sure the Ancient One was an important mentor and a little bit of depth and Kaecilius was important plot-wise, but none of them really got the same attention as Strange did. And yeah, okay, Strange is the titular character, but other superhero films give their secondary main characters more depth and development, this one could have managed that too. Plus, Mordo’s character development made NO SENSE and was just awkwardly handled. How do you go from “Oh no, my mentor betrayed me and was somewhat bad” to “LET’S KILL ALL THE SORCERERS, AHAHA.”???? It just wasn’t explained very well. And Stephen’s girlfriend, while she seemed nice, had very little presence and almost no impact on the plot.
Which leads me to my other critique: there was pretty much no important female characters that lived. I mean the MCU is know for mainly having muscly dude protagonists but even the other films have female characters doing more than Christine got to. (I don’t actually hate Christine, she was a capable nurse and seemed cool but got heavily sidelined by everything else). The Ancient One was actually pretty awesome, but she died to further the plot. Which, given that she had the Mentor role wasn’t really surprising, but they could have included an interesting female sorceress that got to live too.
And actually those…were my main critiques. Pretty notable critiques, but overall I’d say I had a mostly positive reaction to the film (oh and I like the after-cred scene with Thor because I just like Thor and am super hyped for Thor 3). So I’d give it an 8/10.
So, after saying I’d write a review for this film for ACTUAL AGES, I’ve finally decided to actually sit down and WRITE IT. O_O So without further ado, here we go!
I guess I’ll start with what I did like about the film, just for positivity’s sake. The acting was very well done, for one; since I’ve watched quite a lot of BBC Sherlock I worried I’d have a hard time seeing Benedict Cumberbatch as anything other than “American Sorcery-Wielding Sherlock Holmes”, and at first there was a little of that just because of shared personality traits between the two characters. But as the film went on Strange really started feeling like his own character, and Cumberbatch did a great job in portraying that. But he wasn’t the only good acting performance, all of the supporting cast did a great job with what they were given and made the characters enjoyable.
Another thing I liked was the atmosphere and music. The atmosphere felt a lot darker than the other MCU films, partially just because of the lighting and camera work, but also because while there was still a fair share of MCU-style humor, most instances to me felt like a small, brief lightening of an otherwise dark mood for everyone, which I personally really liked. And the soundtrack was AMAZING, honestly I’ve never enjoyed waiting through the credits in an MCU film as much as I did for Doctor Strange, the music was SO GOOD. So that’s a definite plus.
The effects, just like everyone says, were AMAZING. But they were particularly enjoyable to me because they were used in conjuction with two of my favorite things: MAGIC SWIRLIES OF DESTRUCTION and ACTION SEQUENCES. One of my main complaints (or, well, one of them) for the MCU is there has not been enough utilization of sorcery - Loki has been in 3 FILMS and GODS are just accepted as existing yet there has been a serious deficiency of magical battles, which is WHAT I’M HERE FOR. So I was extremely glad with how thoroughly Doctor Strange delivered on this front, which in turn made the action way more exciting to me (it was also well choregraphed/directed I thought).
I also just really liked Stephen Strange himself. I though his character development was well-paced and believable, that it wasn’t just “he knows magic now so he’s cured of his arrogance and self-centered way of thinking”, but you could see him making progress throughout the film until finally, only by the end is has he reached a point where he’s willing to make the selfless choice and let himself be killed repeatedly forever to keep humanity safe. There a multiple points throughout the film where he thinks he’s changed, he’s better, only to have it pointed out that while he’s made progress, he still has elements of his old way of thinking left over and hasn’t FULLY changed into a Real Hero yet, which I really liked because the MCU has a tendency to rush redemption arcs for main characters (ie Thor, and to a lesser extent Iron Man).
Finally, I actually liked the villain. Yes, he didn’t much in the way of backstory or even dialouge, but unlike the other MCU villains that share those traits Kaecillius had a freaking AWESOME presence that I just liked.
But all that being said, the movies wasn’t without its flaws. As much as I loved Stephen Strange’s character arch, he’s the only character in the whole movie that I can say that about. Every other character felt like a background character, sure the Ancient One was an important mentor and a little bit of depth and Kaecilius was important plot-wise, but none of them really got the same attention as Strange did. And yeah, okay, Strange is the titular character, but other superhero films give their secondary main characters more depth and development, this one could have managed that too. Plus, Mordo’s character development made NO SENSE and was just awkwardly handled. How do you go from “Oh no, my mentor betrayed me and was somewhat bad” to “LET’S KILL ALL THE SORCERERS, AHAHA.”???? It just wasn’t explained very well. And Stephen’s girlfriend, while she seemed nice, had very little presence and almost no impact on the plot.
Which leads me to my other critique: there was pretty much no important female characters that lived. I mean the MCU is know for mainly having muscly dude protagonists but even the other films have female characters doing more than Christine got to. (I don’t actually hate Christine, she was a capable nurse and seemed cool but got heavily sidelined by everything else). The Ancient One was actually pretty awesome, but she died to further the plot. Which, given that she had the Mentor role wasn’t really surprising, but they could have included an interesting female sorceress that got to live too.
And actually those…were my main critiques. Pretty notable critiques, but overall I’d say I had a mostly positive reaction to the film (oh and I like the after-cred scene with Thor because I just like Thor and am super hyped for Thor 3). So I’d give it an 8/10.
