Having recently done a rewatch of Doctor Strange it occurred to me that this film was due for its own review. So, here we go. I'll do this in the order of good things then not so good things and also some assorted other thoughts.
The Good
Benedict Cumberlatch - This one (along with the whole film) surprised me. I have not been a fan of his before but I have to give him props here. He nailed this part. He came across as a sort of answer to the question "what would Tony Stark be like if he had access to an Infinity Stone and multiverse powers?".
Most of the rest of the acting - To be honest I don't think anyone gave a poor performance here. Tilda Swinton was okay as the Ancient One, Rachael McAdams was also watchable as Beth Palmer and Mads Mikkelson was entertaining in a droll performance as Kaecilius.
The visuals - Yes they were trippy. In fact they were sort of like Inception on steroids. But with the nature of the Doctor Strange character visuals like this were necessary to properly convey the story.
The ending - I liked this ending a lot. And I think the reason why was that the final confrontation between Strange and Dormammu was not resolved through flash bang mega battle effects but instead was a quiet, more intellectual affair. Strange won through use of reasoning skills and intelligence. He used the Time Stone to create a scenario where the only out for Dormammu was to negotiate in good faith.
The Less Good
The music - I'll admit I was less than totally impressed with the music. It was more or less appropriate stuff but felt sort of generic to me.
The Early Story - I'm not saying the story was bad early on and as stated earlier I really liked the ending. But I also felt that it was a bit sluggish in getting going. That said, once it did get started it was reasonably brisk.
Miscellaneous thoughts
First, I did have to wonder what made the MCU powers that be time the release of this film when they did because it created plot problems for the films following it. The basic plot problem was this:
Doctor Strange is the most powerful character in the Marvel Universe. Put together his mystic arts skills and that he possesses and controls the Time Stone (arguably the most powerful Infinity Stone) and really no other character (not even Thanos) is a match for him. As a result, they had to insert him in a pretty clumsy way into both Infinity War and Endgame in order to explain away why he didn't just do any number of things with the Time Stone to defeat Thanos; from time looping him like he did Dormammu to simply going back to before Thanos had the Gauntlet with some other Avengers and taking him out.
Second, I was rather surprised to like this film. I expected to like Infinity War and dislike Doctor Strange but instead I liked this film and my feelings about both Infinity War and Endgame were more along the lines of boredom. And to be honest Captain Marvel was just drivel. In a sad way Doctor Strange is the last good MCU film up to now.
Finally, I admit to being a completist. By this I mean that when a story is ended I start wanting the details to be cleaned up. In this case, I do wish they had actually had Strange assume the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme in this film. But it was not a big issue.
The Good
Benedict Cumberlatch - This one (along with the whole film) surprised me. I have not been a fan of his before but I have to give him props here. He nailed this part. He came across as a sort of answer to the question "what would Tony Stark be like if he had access to an Infinity Stone and multiverse powers?".
Most of the rest of the acting - To be honest I don't think anyone gave a poor performance here. Tilda Swinton was okay as the Ancient One, Rachael McAdams was also watchable as Beth Palmer and Mads Mikkelson was entertaining in a droll performance as Kaecilius.
The visuals - Yes they were trippy. In fact they were sort of like Inception on steroids. But with the nature of the Doctor Strange character visuals like this were necessary to properly convey the story.
The ending - I liked this ending a lot. And I think the reason why was that the final confrontation between Strange and Dormammu was not resolved through flash bang mega battle effects but instead was a quiet, more intellectual affair. Strange won through use of reasoning skills and intelligence. He used the Time Stone to create a scenario where the only out for Dormammu was to negotiate in good faith.
The Less Good
The music - I'll admit I was less than totally impressed with the music. It was more or less appropriate stuff but felt sort of generic to me.
The Early Story - I'm not saying the story was bad early on and as stated earlier I really liked the ending. But I also felt that it was a bit sluggish in getting going. That said, once it did get started it was reasonably brisk.
Miscellaneous thoughts
First, I did have to wonder what made the MCU powers that be time the release of this film when they did because it created plot problems for the films following it. The basic plot problem was this:
Doctor Strange is the most powerful character in the Marvel Universe. Put together his mystic arts skills and that he possesses and controls the Time Stone (arguably the most powerful Infinity Stone) and really no other character (not even Thanos) is a match for him. As a result, they had to insert him in a pretty clumsy way into both Infinity War and Endgame in order to explain away why he didn't just do any number of things with the Time Stone to defeat Thanos; from time looping him like he did Dormammu to simply going back to before Thanos had the Gauntlet with some other Avengers and taking him out.
Second, I was rather surprised to like this film. I expected to like Infinity War and dislike Doctor Strange but instead I liked this film and my feelings about both Infinity War and Endgame were more along the lines of boredom. And to be honest Captain Marvel was just drivel. In a sad way Doctor Strange is the last good MCU film up to now.
Finally, I admit to being a completist. By this I mean that when a story is ended I start wanting the details to be cleaned up. In this case, I do wish they had actually had Strange assume the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme in this film. But it was not a big issue.
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