Last night I went and saw the new Doctor Strange movie. It was… fine… That’s almost a weird review for me to give a Marvel movie. There’s this weird thing about fans of superhero movies. They tend to be very territorial. There’s an assumption that if you don’t love every movie then something is wrong with you. In particular, right now, there’s an assumption that people who like Marvel movies but don’t like DC movies are part of some vast conspiracy. I’ve been accused of being a DC hater after my last few superhero movie reviews. At least that’s better than a lot of the professional critics who get told that they’re on the take from Marvel. Well, I mean, maybe… I’d kill to be on the take from Marvel.
Anyway, If you’re one of those people who is waiting to hear someone who likes Marvel movies not rave about a Marvel movie…. well, here’s your moment. Doctor Strange was… fine. Really, that’s basically the best (and worst) I can say about it. It wasn’t great. But it wasn’t horrible either. It was actually kind of formulaic. It follows a very basic story structure. There’s no real surprises; there’s basically once “twist” in the whole movie and when it happens I just kinda said “oh, ok… so that’s the twist. Fine, I guess” and moved on.
Again, this isn’t bad. If I were teaching an intro to screenwriting class, the script would certainly get an A. It is a text book example of story building. Introduce the principle characters in the first ten minutes. Build an immediate complication for the protagonist to drive the plot. As the protagonist works through his complication, the wider plot unfolds for the protagonist to work through Begin to dovetail these together. Add a twist to take us into the third act. Climax. Resolution, Denouement. Roll credits. Because it’s a Marvel movie, toss in a mid credits scene to set up the next movie on Marvel’s slate and an after credits scene to set up the next movie in this particular sequence. Fade to black.
That is the entire plot structure to the movie. With no spoilers. But also no specifics. Because that is the basic plot to about a billion movies. You can tweak it and move things around a bit to make it interesting if you want. This did not. This was a text book structure. It followed it perfectly. It knitted the whole thing together with some visually appealing set pieces. It casts half a dozen Academy Award calibre actors. The special effects are… well, I mean, basically someone dug up the old inception CGI software and turned the knob up to 11. But whatever. Inception was cool, right?
So you know… Inception on steroids. That’s… fine.
And there was some good stuff happening here. Benedict Cumberbatch did a good job. Chiwetel Ejiofor did a good job. Tilda Swinton did a really good job. In fact she was probably the best part of the movie. I expected that I’d spend my entire review writing about whether or not they pulled off the whitewashing/cultural appropriation/orientalism thing. But really, they basically did a great job of avoiding it. It was inoffensive. She is not the comics Ancient One in any sense other than in name. Honestly, if they had just named the character Umar it would have worked just as well (arguably even better for reasons I won’t get into because of spoilers — if someone asks, maybe I’ll say in the comments) except they would have had geeks complaining “Dr. Strange wasn’t trained by Umar! He was trained by the Ancient One! You bastards!!!” Of course 99% of geeks would be like “who the fuck is Umar” which would be fine, honestly… because that puts them right in line with the 99% of fans who were thinking “who the fuck is the Ancient One?”
But there’s nothing special about it. It was… fine.
And there were some not great things. Rachel McAdams has no real reason to be in the movie and certainly not much reason to be there as Christine Palmer, who has no real connection the Dr. Strange mythos at all. So much so that I bet 99% of Doctor Strange fans asked themselves “who the fuck is Christine Palmer?” She wasn’t bad in it. She was a completely non-offensive but ultimately formulaic love-interest. She had a few things to do, but mostly her entire purpose amounts to “hey, a good way to ground a movie character in reality is to show that he has a personal life and other real people who care about him so … uh… I guess he has a love story here. Hey, that chick who was nominated for Supporting Actress for Spotlight last year is kinda cute and she can act and stuff. Lets get her.” So she was a waste because she had nothing much to do. But she did the very little that she had to do very well. Similarly Benedict Wong didn’t have a ton to do as Wong. I also feel like he got cast simply because his name was already right. But he was good in the few things that he got to do and was a little closer to the main plot than McAdams so a little better integrated even if there wasn’t much for him to do.
But there’s nothing special about either of them. They were… fine.
And really, fine is good. Structurally, it was a much better movie than Suicide Squad. All of the pieces came together. It didn’t have anything in it that was offensively bad. Suicide Squad was NOT fine in many many many ways… but I actually had much more fun watching it. This is a better movie. Suicide Squad is a much more fun movie. They’re a wash.
But they were both worth watching and I feel like that’s enough of an accomplishment. At the end of the day, this wasn’t a bad movie. But I found myself being more excited by the previews for Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which were before the film than I was about the perfectly serviceable movie I was watching. And that was a similar effect that I got from watching Sucide Squad. And that’s maybe a problem but it’s not a big one. I still enjoyed myself for the time that I was sitting in the seat.
★★★☆☆(3 out of 5 stars)
I feel like I should review more non-geek movies. I see a lot of movies… like really a lot. And I only ever bother to write these up for the science fiction and comic booky ones. Should I do them for others as well? Would people even care?
I like your reviews 🙂
Thank you.
I’d read all your reviews, fwiw
thanks. I saw a bunch of movies over the summer and the last few months that I felt like I should be writing about just because I like writing about movies but never got around to because i felt like who would care:
Money Monster, The Shallows, Girl on the Train, The Accountant and Nerve were all non-geek movies I saw in the theater in the last few months… plus there are just a ton of random things I watch on DVD or streaming a few times a week. I just never say anything about them because I feel like no one would care.
I’d care, haha, and I think others would too!
I think I enjoyed it more than you but I don’t disagree with anything you wrote here. It’s not the best Marvel film but far from the worst. I liked Rachel McAdams character because she was the character who new Strange in the past and was reacting to seeing him in the present [especially during the fight in the operating room]. But otherwise she didn’t have much to do. I enjoyed the special effects a lot [especially the big bad sequence I thought was outstading–even if the actual confrontation was kind of meh]. I have read a few critics who said this film takes the blue print straight from the first Iron Man film [the arrogant rich man who has his life identity destroyed and has to redeem himself]and I don’t disagree with that either. I don’t know how else you’d make this film, as Dr Strange really needs an origin story to establish everything before you can continue on with him as a character. Finally you got much better trailers at your show, since they only showed ROUGE ONE when I saw it.
I had a Rogue One trailer as well. I had a bunch of them honestly. Power rangers. Life. Logan. The Great Wall. Rogue one. GOTG2, Wonder Woman. Power Rangers looks way better than you’d think.
Really though with the movie it’s that it’s even bad to be paint by numbers. You’re right. Doc Strange needs an origin or 99% of the audience can’t follow along when he shows up in Avengers next year. But it really was just “follow the formula” in a lot of ways. As opposed to Ant-Man, which while formulaic, I loved.
The difference is Ant Man was written as a heist movie and was the first script made before Iron Man. Dr Strange you could argue followed the same dramatic path that a lot of Disney movies follows.
I agree that McAdams was the audience’s envoy. The every-(wo)man, who helped ground it a bit and proved that Strange had the redeemable in him all along, but had to find it for himself.
I didn’t expect more and was not disappointed, which was…fine.
I actually watch a livestream of a group of geeks (3/4 of which are the guys from Super Hero News, which oddly I don’t watch) discussing movies every week, so yeah, I’d enjoy the occasional review from a friend who’s opinion I respect. And if you’re curious about the livestream, you can find the previous episodes on YouTube under “Cineverse”.
Watch Spirited Away. I would love to read your movie review if that.
I’ve seen it. I meant new stuff really.
Why? I’ve got another friend reviewing a lot of movies on Facebook. The majority, though he reviews lots more he sees, are from the historical survey he’s undertaken, in which he’s up to 1918.
yeah… i certainly could. But I watch a LOT of movies and many of them are just things I know no one else would care about. I just figure it would be a lot of work and people would just be annoyed by it.
That was my review of Ant-Man and people lost their ever loving SHIT on me.
The Marvel formula is getting tiresome.
Yeah but you were wrong, dammit!!!! ?
Actually though I’m ok with the formula. Formulas are formulas for a reason. Formulaic doesn’t mean bad. I love fast & furious movies.
Ant-man I felt like had something to build it out and distinguish it from the formula. And it was fun. Amazing? No… but fun. It surprised me on Ways I wasn’t expecting. 3.75 stars. Maybe even 4.
Doc Strange was straight by the numbers. So it was exactly what I expected. A solid 3 star film. No more and no less.
Take suicide squad on the other hand. A movie that failed to hit its formula on every mark. It was convoluted. The premise was flawed. The effects were awful. The storyline had holes. In many ways it had a lot of the problems of BvS. But it was SO DAMN FUN. The sheer joy of it made up for a lot of problems and so it also became a 3star film. Instead of 1.5.
This was how I felt about X-Men: Apocalypse
The reason I’ve not reviewed that is that i honestly haven’t made it through it. It felt less than fine. And not bad in a way that was interesting to talk about like green lantern or fantfourstic. It was just entirely mediocre and boring to me.
I’ll try again at some point I’m sure.
Right? I felt similarly. And who is Umar?
Umar is a lesser known character that no one remembers from the Dr. Strange comic. She is the sister of Dormammu (the flaming head bad guy from the movie) and the mother of Clea (Dr. Strange’s eventual girlfriend… she wasn’t in the movie). So given the way the movie storyline went having that connection would have made sense.
Oh that would have been way cooler.
“Because that is the basic plot to about a billion movies. ”
That is the only real criticism I have seen. It’s good, but not great, doesn’t really break any ground.
Did you see it in any 3D or IMAX, I am thinking that is the only reason to catch it in the theater.
I saw it in non-IMAX 3D. It was certainly pretty and that was nice to see on a big screen. The story wasn’t bad. Which is to say, it had a story. It’s just that it’s a story that you basically know. Paint by numbers, like I said… it was executed quite well.
Chris Maverick Cool, thanks.
It was an Origin movie. It was at least an Origin movie that we haven’t seen on screen a dozen times already.