~Beyond the Border~ > Sara's Audio-Visual Import-Overflow Retail
Doctor Strange: Basically Iron Man But With Magic Powers
commandercool:
Anybody else see the Doctor Strange movie?
I saw it last night and liked it okay. I think I liked it the least of anyone I've talked to so far, but that doesn't mean I disliked it at all. The effects are absolutely nuts and the script is decent, although I really wish they had cut five minutes of effects shots for some more goofin' around.
The real question with this property was "How are they going to seamlessly integrate magic powers into the Marvel universe?" since despite the presence of Scarlet Witch and the Thor cast the Marvel movies are a heavily sci-fi franchise. And that went very well I think. This new world blends into the rest of Marvel very well.
This was probably my least favorite Marvel movie since Thor 2 given the slightly slow and weird pacing and what I thought was a sliiightly bland performance from Cumberbatch, but I'm in the minority in thinking that.
Spoiler: Given that my biggest problem with these movies is that they all have the same ending I give a lot of credit to the fact that the ending, like in Guardians, is not really a fight scene. It's pretty silly, but in a good way. So many bonus points for that.
BT:
I've heard from friends that it's """amazing""". Honestly I don't have much of a frame of reference for Marvel movies, but I'll probably watch this sometime soon.
Reddyne:
Doctor Strange: Somewhere between Batman Begins, Inception, The Matrix, and I dunno maybe something H.P. Lovecraft-ish.
Overall, the movie felt really familiar from a Marvel Movie Universe standpoint. Introduction of characters and world in which they live, origin story, villain introduced, hero challenged, climax, conclusion, all well tailored around familiar narrative and style that has suited these movies so well because of how well it works. Strange as a character might come off as a bit too much like Tony Stark in the way that they're both cocky successful guys who are laid low by their own actions but use their fall as a pivot point in their lives to sorta better themselves (and become superheroes in the process), but Strange still does enough to feel like his own person. BC did well enough but I can see why people thought he was a bit dry. Still, all the major good superhero movie boxes were checked and it was a great ride. Special mention for it being real easy to like and understand some of the characters. Maybe a little bit more backstory/explanation into motives/mindsets and such could have helped but at the end of the day you have to sandwich seven boatloads of characters/story/lore/mythos into a 2 hour time slot.
The effects ARE crazy and even when things became downright nutters, I thought that the people who made the movie still knew how to shift focus from the visuals (which I saw as a bit of a vector for conveying how bizarre and surreal powers could be and how we don't fully comprehend how the world works) to the characters and back again when the moment struck.
All in all it was a lot of fun though that may be due in part to me not knowing this corner of Marvel all that well. Still, I think that's the way it is with a lot of people. For what it's worth, I think it was a comfortable Marvel movie romp with its own identity.
Also oh crap Spoiler: apparently there were two after credit scenes? Or so I hear. Whoops. I should've stuck with my intuition on this one.
commandercool:
--- Quote from: Reddyne on November 07, 2016, 06:11:53 PM ---Also oh crap Spoiler: apparently there were two after credit scenes? Or so I hear. Whoops. I should've stuck with my intuition on this one.
--- End quote ---
The first was Spoiler: Strange and Thor hanging out and deciding to hunt down Loki together, since apparently Thor knows he's alive again somehow.
The second was Spoiler: Mordo finding and re-crippling that paralyzed basketball guy, since apparently he's now a zealous guardian of the natural order who hunts down magic users and steals their magic power.
Reddyne:
--- Quote from: commandercool on November 07, 2016, 06:46:34 PM ---The first was Spoiler: Strange and Thor hanging out and deciding to hunt down Loki together, since apparently Thor knows he's alive again somehow.
The second was Spoiler: Mordo finding and re-crippling that paralyzed basketball guy, since apparently he's now a zealous guardian of the natural order who hunts down magic users and steals their magic power.
--- End quote ---
I missed the second one. They've been doing this for so long that I figured they just wanted to get it done once people knew the movie was over. :V
I mean Spoiler: Mordo's eventually a bad guy anyway so might as well get that in so people can expect a direct sequel.