Doctor Strange Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

Doctor Strange

Marvel has been on a roll so-far with is expansive cinematic universe to put its huge list of creative characters. The most recent of which is Doctor Strange, which introduces the realm of magic into the MCU. So with that, I had pretty high hopes for this movie. With the exception of Thor 2 and Iron Man 2, this franchise hasn't really let me down on a major level thus far. That is, until I saw Doctor Strange.

Yeah, when I start a review like that, you know it's not going to be a friendly one. But for now, I'm going to talk about what I liked about this movie, because it's not all terrible. Tilda Swinton and Chiwitel Ejiofor are as good as ever, no surprise there. Benedict Wong continues to be one of the most underrated actors working today. Mads Mikkelsen and Rachel Mcadams are good, despite their short screentime. And while I couldn't stand the character he was playing, for what it's worth, I thought Cumberbatch did a good job as well.

However when it comes to the characters these actors are wonderfully playing, the film starts to fall apart. Throughout all of Doctor Strange there was not a single character I found myself attatched to. The protagonist was an arrogant, unlikable jerk with a boring predictable origin story, Swinton and Ejiofors characters aren't really characters so much as they are backdrops for the main character to exist, and the villain was probably the worst villain in the MCU thus far. And I think a lot of this stems from the fact that we're given the story of Doctor Strange from the perspective of an origin story. This film would have probably worked way better if the protagonist was a new character - a lesser known character from the comics or just a new character because they're allowed to make up a new story if the existing one kind of sucks, and in this case it does. And the story doesn't really exist, it's just a training montage and then boom he's fighting the bad guy, there is no build up and no development in this hastily made mess of a movie.

When I say hastily made, I really mean it. Everything about this movie screams "rushed", especially the exposition. You remember in Guardians of the Galaxy, how most of the movie was amazing except for the few moments that are just characters explaining the backstory of the plot to the audience? Yeah, that's what this entire movie is like. Scene after scene of explanations, with no development. There's a concept called "show, don't tell" which is essentially the idea that the story should be visually conveyed to the audience in a way that's natural, rather than a character walking into a scene and going "this is the current event happening in the plot right now". Not only does Doctor Strange opt out of "show, don't tell", it seems often perfectly satisfied with telling the audience everything and showing us nothing.

Sidenote: The only other thing I feel obligated to mention with this movie is the psychedelic effects. So-far, every other review has brought up the "creative" and "mind-bending" visuals used in this movie. But here's the truth about the "trippy" effects in this movie. The only trippy scene in this movie is a sequence that lasts 2 minutes, the rest is just the director putting a kaleidoscope effect on the background and acting like that's somehow creative. 

Final Rating
Okay, in all honesty, if you're looking for nothing more than a fun popcorn flick, this isn't the worst option. It's fine. It's alright, it's not a godawful movie by any means. But it's certainly one of the worst in the MCU thus far, and the only one so-far that I've had this passionate of a response to. I was genuinely not a fan of Doctor Strange, and if you can, try to avoid seeing it.