Marvel Month - Mini Review - Doctor Strange

Whilst the Scarlett Witch exists in the MCU, she was more a super-powered being than a genuine magic user. Magic is a fascinating area that does warrant exploration and it’s not beyond the realms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which can more-or-less do anything by this point. And for exploring the realms of magic, doing the origin of Doctor Strange, a character who is himself relatively new to the realm, makes perfect sense.

So… Doctor Strange had a budget of $166m and made a profitable $677m, it also was well liked by critics despite some unfortunate press going in. 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is pretty high. But here are my thoughts

Steven Strange is a narcissistic Doctor who gets his hands crushed in an unfortunate car accident (they even put a PSA in the end credits) exhausting time and money to heal himself to no avail, his last hope lies in Kathmandu and the Ancient One. To heal his body and spirit he needs to master magic but to do that he must learn to master himself. Oh and there’s some bullsh*t about a villain too.

Right, first off, let’s give credit to the visual directors of this movie. All 10 of them. This movie is probably one of the best looking movies in the MCU. From the mirror dimension, to bending realities to just the small touches like the cape and… that cape. You can’t see me now, but I’m grinning ear to ear just thinking about it.

With regards to plot though, there is one very clever bit of writing near the end and I think incorporating the time gem with Doctor Strange is a neat touch. Here’s the thing though, it’s all so basic, I’ve seen everything here before. And I suppose part of the fact I’ve already watched a movie about the origin of Doctor strange, which I did a review on last year. The journey of self-discovery (just about every Disney movie), the choice of becoming part of a war and whether it really is a choice (Defenders) a mentor who does bad things for the greater god (Stick in the Netflix series), a major threat on the horizon (Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer)

Bennedict Cumberbatch did a fine job as Doctor Steven Strange, and he was fun when he appeared in Thor: Ragnarok, looking forward to whatever else the Marvel Universe will offer up for him. Most of the other actors are fine, I’ll get to Tilda Swinton in a bit but everyone else was fine.

So, Marvel villains, they had Zemo who didn’t suck but ultimately didn’t impress me much either but old habits die hard I think as the villains in Doctor Strange are nothing to write home about. Kaellicius…Kaceilius… one minute

<check Wikipedia>

Kaecillus is another example of a hero who became disillusioned with their mentor and turned against him, just like the villain of Ant-Man, and much like Ant-man, he suffers from problem that ultimately relates back to the critical rule

SHOW DON’T TELL!

We see Loki growing up (admittedly briefly) with the expectations of being King, we see Ego fall in love with Star Lord’s mother, we see the Vulture’s tech team kicked out by Damage Control, what we see helps us identify with the villain. I suppose that’s what they were going for with Mordu but we come to exactly the same problem. What we know, he’s a stickler for rules and believes that breaking them has to come at a cost. But he’s seen what Dormammu and other threats are capable of, he sees the world needing sorcerers, so why the f*ck has he turned against Magic in the end-credits tease?

As for Dormammu himself, not much to say there, he only really turns up at the climax and is defeated rather easily, if by very clever and well-written means. I will say this is the one time the visual direction was off, Dormammu looked boring, with no colour to him, that might’ve been intentional but it still irks me.

OK, let’s get to the elephant in the room. Let’s talk about racism and whitewashing. Having a white woman cast as a character who in the comics, is an Asian man may seem like blatant Hollywood bullsh*t at its worst. Hear me out here, I think Tilda Swinton is perfect as the ancient one, she carries the right voice to be of both compassion and heavy force when necessary. But that’s not why this is controversial. 

So, let’s talk about China, Marvel movies do big business in China, and China won’t allow certain movies to be viewed in the country, with the very mention of Tibet, where a Chinese Ancient one would ultimate have originated, it would be banned in China. So, they changed it to a Celtic figure.

The movie has a rather bland plot leading up to an incredibly clever climax, but the good performances and visual direction help this put a cup above some the less good Marvel movies.

Rating 72/100