Another success,....I was worried that the kaleidoscope effects would be annoying.....& too Inception style,.....not annoying at all.....& more mindbending
Quite a good bit of humour, which I wasn't really expecting,....(the wi-fi password was one of the only indications in the trailers)
Great acting,....& I can't wait to see more of the character/s
Edit: Forgot there will be a reaction thread sorry!
Disappointed. Which is gutting. Not in the sense that it was a bad film, not at all bad. But even with normal expectations, I just came out underwhelmed.
There were some laugh moments sprinkled throughout. Some good action scenes. A few emotional moments but nothing particularly noteworthy I dont think.
I didn't mind the slow build up so much, but that feeling lingered - I kept waiting for the film to enter "great film" category...and it never did for me.
I thought the imagination with some of the fast trippy visuals was great, but the imagination in some of the rest of the film was lacking. Considering they kept talking about endless multiverses, the power that they harness and bending reality etc...it was very basic in the real world. The music, I swear it sounded almost exactly like a few mash ups of other things, such as the newer Star Trek films, my fiance reckons she could hear notes of Harry Potter in there too. That could just be me of course.
Spoiler thoughts below.
I understood Kaecilius (had to look that up, couldnt remember his name) as the "conduit" villain. But I felt nothing for him, except for perhaps a few moments when he was in the body trap. Very underdeveloped, which would be fine if the "main" villain was. But wow...if you honestly think about it, that was some Fantastic Four 2 Galactus stuff. It looked so much better than that, and it was visually lovely. But that was it? I'm not in any way trying to say that this film is on the same level as FF2. It is better. But the main villain.... I don't know if Dormammu is supposed to have more intelligence or be charismatic in any way, and if not...fair enough I suppose, if thats the point of him. But a massive, seemingly straightforward talking head surrounded by colours and smoke dealing with someone that can make hard light constructs...Green Lantern?
And whilst I also understood exactly what they went for with Mordo...that didn't feel tragic, or a believable turn of events at the end. On paper, it probably works. Is steadfast, has his belief tested, loses faith.....goes bad. I just didn't think it worked well on screen. I enjoyed the performance up until the "Ancient One" reveal...never quite hit the high notes with his feelings of betrayal.
Cumberbatch as Strange...he's good. His accent seemed a bit wobbly sometimes. And literally it was like watching House getting his mysticism on sometimes. Not a bad thing. Embodied the ******* turns good guy well, but to save the day....reverses time? You know that thing we all ignore but hate about the 1978 Superman movie!!
Helping out his own operation from within the Astral/physical plane - good. Unique!
I enjoyed the Ancient One, but overall, a seemingly super basic plot line. We never find out much more about her backstory. Has one of the best/beautiful emotional moments though, which was excellent with the lightning, the helicopter, and stretching her last moment into a thousand in the Astral plane.
Rachel McAdams was good - a well utilised role even though it was minor and she sold the emotion and shock and acceptance of everything quite well.
Overall, I enjoyed all the trimmings, but the story was very basic and felt like it was being spelled (lol) out to us in neat little number boxes. My most enjoyable parts were when Strange was training (which was interesting/amusing and I think they could have done much more with this), when Strange started getting his badass on, which was cool (the floating up once the cape catches him was a nice little hero moment), and whilst I wasn't keen on the reversing time stuff, I thought the effects with it, and the way he used it as a gauntlet etc was very, very cool. And the entirety of the New York Sanctum was sublime...a magical museum safe house doubling as a defense against the multiverse that I would kill to go and have a look around. Can't wait for someone to have a go at making the Cloak of Levitation glass case prop! haha.
Overall, a 6.5/10 for me, definitely entertaining, but nowhere close to some of the other Marvel films in my opinion. If I had to choose between Ant man and this, it would be a toss up, because both have some unique ideas, a basic plot, some good effects and some good humour. If I had to choose between Iron Man and this, or Winter Soldier and this etc...you get the picture. Works well as an origin for the GA though I would think, and the post credit scenes does nicely fast forward us to interactions in the MCU, but the full humour angle was a bit weird.
I may go again later in the week to see how a second viewing sits, but I don't quite feel like I "have" to or want to yet.
Strangely enjoyable!!
Everything you've heard about the visual effects in this film are absolutely spot on! Utterly true to their comic book origins and super enhanced by magical 21st century high tech!!
I actually 3D'd this one and was glad that I did, but ,there is a hell of alot going on screen, more so than in many films, so be well warned. For me it worked brilliantly by enhancing all the spells , interdimensional jumps and set pieces,the 3D properly gives it a unique style and atmosphere. Marvel have once again managed to add another imaginatively clever and artistically beautiful layer to their universe, I loved it for that alone.
The cast was excellent too!!! Although Benedict C does seem to channel Hugh Laurie at times so you occasionally get a kind of Dr Strange-House effect, especially with the many quips he really comes to own the character by the end of it so that its difficult to imagine anyone else ever doing it. And I really don't understand why a few critics go on about needing to "round out " the other characters in this . In " Iron Man" Pepper and the bad guys get exactly the same screen time and back story as everyone in DS which is the other point to make here , it does feel very like the first Iron Man movie beat for beat, although the themes and action are both more complex which in turn means you occasionally need to think a little more about whats going on.
So despite all of this there are some caveats I'd make for others:
This really isn't for the younger kids in the same way many Marvel films are. Although the origin storyline is simple enough alot of the themes through out DS are not, so anyone wanting a "pew pew booommmm"film is going to fidget sometimes through this, even with all the particularly pretty pictures and clever set pieces.
Its not got the complexity of ideas like in "Inception" but there is some heavy theory and alot of discussion through this, which some people may dislike. And neither is it Harry Potter like universe, there is alot of moral ambiguity in this which makes the distinction between the opposing sides of the mystical spheres rather blurred and less clear cut than many may approve but again I liked that, it seemed more honest to me.
Other than that, as the origin story of one of the hardest character introductions to make in the MCU theres very little to fault and its another strong debue. What particularly tweaked my interest by the end of it was the first mid credits scene. You get a real sense of where the next Thor movie is going.
And, strangely enough , I really liked it.
We dug it, will probably go again to see in 3D.
As usual, plenty of fun Marvel nerd easter eggs.
Mid credits scene got a cheer.
Felt a little short, and Strange feels a little bit like Stark in his arrogance, but these quibbles don't detract for me.
Marvel nails it again.
Liked it very much and I am glad the movie embraced Marvel's mystic side head-on including its trippy visuals. The movie was more funny than I expected. The 3D was worth it and I plan to see it in IMAX when I am traveling next week, as it isn't available in my city.
With all the mentioning of the multiverse in the film I could not help but think about string theory and for me
this actually added in my mind an explanation for tapping into these powers as they talked about using energy
from these other realms. BS me in a way I can buy into and I'm happy. LOL I don't need much sometimes.
I think it will do well. I hope it does because delving into a new realm, literally, is a good thing.
My crowd was engaged in the film that's for sure, and given few could answer the trivia questions
before the screening it was not the dyed in the wool comic geek crowd I would have expected.
We just got home from seeing the movie and Oh... my... god! That was a freaking fun film.
I don't know anything about Doctor Strange beyond his appearances in the recent Spider-Man cartoons, but man, I had a great time watching this movie. I'm also really excited to see how the introduction of actual magic into the MCU shakes up the status quo.
Agreed.
While Stan Lee can debate all day how much credit he deserves over Spider-Man there's little doubt that everything special about Dr. Strange came from Ditko's imagination. I think it's his greatest work. And, even though Stan doesn't get royalties either, I think Marvel should at least consider offering Ditko an honorarium.
"Visually stunning" is a cliché film critics apply shamelessly for every blockbuster released. This is the first film where this term can apply with no exaggeration. In 3D I was literally slack-jawed through some sequences.
Since Doctor Strange and Agents of Shield are in the same shared universe...I wonder if Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider can sense/feel/touch/kill sorcerers from Kamar-Taj when they're spirits leave their bodies(Ancient One, Mordo, Strange, & Kaecilius)?
Saw it this afternoon with the wife and a good friend. My wife is not as big a geek as I am and fell asleep during SW-TFA, she made it all the way thru this and really liked it! I really enjoyed it, loved the two credit scenes, loved the Easter eggs, walked away very pleased!
