Doctor Strange - Movie Review!

Who's In It?

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benjamin Cumberbatch, and Tilda Swinton

What's It About?

When a world renowned neurosurgeon mangles his hands in a car crash, he makes a pilgrimage to Kathmandu in the hopes of a cure where he meets a cabal of sorcerers.

Any Good?

This movie was the first Marvel I've seen with BALLS. They've always played it safe (ESPECIALLY with Civil War) they finally tried, and it paid off.

The visuals in this movie are INCREDIBLE from the first scene, it comes out swinging and very rarely takes breaks - going from insane kaleidoscope fight scenes to beautiful shots of Nepal streets and markets.

The fight scenes are fairly simple themselves, but when they start jumping through portals or bending buildings AND ENTIRE CITIES they really are incredible. Speaking of the bendy buildings, they look SO good. Even as the entire things are moving, the window ledges and other small features are moving on their own and you have A LOT to look at.

The acting itself is really decent for a Marvel movie - although I got the feeling they were trying to make Doctor Strange/Cumberbatch the new Tony Stark/RDJ. He was good though, and really played the more funny parts of the movie well. Chiwetel Ejiofor was a liiitle over the top in some parts, coming off as shouty and seemed to add a little air of superiority to his role.

Tilda Swinton on the other hand, was great as always. While she didn't have quite the beard The Ancient One has, I thought she was perfect for this role because she's like some sort of androgynous powerful figure in real life anyway. I was also impressed with how well she played the Marvel hammy joke lines with a really dry wit that made them actually funny.

It's actually a relief to see movie companies roll the dice for once on a comic film, especially when it looks this good. Beside the gorgeous visuals and mind-bending fight scenes, the movie really was funny when it tried to be and felt much more natural than the usual one-liner scripts. 

My one lasting impression was that Doctor Strange is like Inception, just not pretentious as all hell. See it in IMAX (middle seats a bit back) if possible, it's WELL worth it.

Rating: