Doctor Strange

Well, here we are. At the last comic book movie of this year, Doctor Strange. This was my third most anticipated comic book movie of this year behind Civil War and Deadpool. And so did this movie live up to be another fantastic Marvel Cinematic Universe movie? Yeah. It totally did. This is an awesome and very likeable movie. And, like the other movies I've reviewed that have come out this year, I'll be talking about the full story. So if you don't want it spoiled, go see it then read this. Alright, what's the story? It opens up with the villain named Kaecilius, played by Mads Mikkelsen, and his men escaping from some place and a person in a yellow cloak stops them and they have a magic fight. Kaecilius and some of his men escape and then we cut to a man named Steve Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who's a neurosurgeon. He's brilliant, but he's also super arrogant and a jerk. There's a woman he works with named Christine. One morning he's driving to work and talking to another person he works with but he crashes his car an it damages his hands. He's operated on but his hands are now useless. He's now trying to find a cure for them but nothing is working. He then meets a person who was in an accident too and was paralysed from his arms and legs but is now cured which is supposed to be physically impossible. He tells Steven about this place he went to that helped him and so Steven goes there. As he's going he meets a man the named Baron Mordo, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. He shows Steven a building where they meet a bald woman there named the Ancient One, played by Tilda Swinton. She begins to tell Steven about magic and what they can do. She also explains the past. Apparently Kaecilius was once her apprentice but he was taken over by the forces of dark magic and the evil spirit named Dormammu. The next few scenes are Steven training to do magic and learning more about Kaecilius. There's also a special necklace thing with a green object in it. It the Time Stone. Another one of the Infinity Stones. We also learn that Kaecilius stole some pages of a special book. Eventually, Kaecilius and his men attack and Steven fights them somewhere else and he even gets the cloak of levitation. He manages to get rid of one and kill the other but he only captures Kaecilius in a device but he then escapes and Mordo and the Ancient One arrive and Steven reveals to Mordo what Kaecilius told him. Apparently the reason the Ancient One has lived for so many centuries is because she draws power from the dark dimension. As the Ancient One leaves, Kaecilius attacks again and Steven and Mordo try to get away from him. The Ancient One tries to help them but he kills her. As she's being operated on, both her spirit and Steven's talk and she then dies completely. Steven and Mordo then go to Hong Kong and find that Kaecilius has attack that sanctity too. Wong is also there, a good guy from earlier. They begin to fight them and Kaecilius is opening a portal to have Dormammu come to our world. But then Steven gets an idea. He reverses time and flies through the portal and we get to see Dormammu. Although, he looks absolutely nothing like what he looks like in the comics. He looks like some kind of crystal cloud thing with a face. Anyway, Steven puts a magic reset on his arm and Dormammu keeps killing him but he keeps coming back saying he wants to make a bargain and Dormammu finally gives in and leaves and also kills Kaecilius and his servants. And the prologue is Mordo leaving because he doesn't like the way sorcerers are doing these things and that the Ancient One has been lying to him this whole time. Steven then puts the necklace back we see it glow. And the mid-credit scene is Steven wearing the yellow gloves he wears in the comics and talking to Thor. Apparently Thor now knows about what Loki did at the end of Thor: The Dark World and Odin has gone missing and he's asking Steven for help. I hope that that's a tie-in for Thor: Ragnarok next year. Who knows, maybe we'll see Steven in Ragnarok. And the after credit scene is Mordo visiting the guy Steven talked to who was paralysed and takes away his spiritual energy so he can't use his limbs again and says "Because there's too many sorcerers in the world." My guess is that that's his transformation into a villain because in the comics, Mordo is a villain and Steven's biggest enemy next to Dormammu. And that's the story. So, in case you're wondering, do I think that this movie is as good as Civil War? No, I don't. But this is still a fantastic movie. Firstly the positives. The cast is fantastic in this. Benedict Cumberbatch kills it as Steven Strange and he's incredible in this role. He actually reminds me a lot of Tony Stark in the first Iron Man movie in the sense that he starts off as arrogant and a jerk but then something happens to him that makes him nicer. The rest of the cast is also really great. Chiwetel Ejiofor is amazing as Mordo and you almost kinda feel for him and you do kinda see where he's coming from. You're not condoling his actions but you kinda understand what he's going through. And even before he turns evil, he's really likeable. Tilda Swinton is fantastic as the Ancient One and she gives this really incredible wise like performance and the whole scene where she dies really surprised me, even though that does happen in the comics. Doctor Strange, in the comics, becomes the Sorcerer Supreme when the Ancient One dies and so when that happened in the movie, I was surprised, just not all that much. But still, you know. Another character I really liked in this was Wong. That guy we see a few times. He's really likeable and funny at times. Mads Mikkelsen was also good as Kaecilius. Although, as you probably guessed already, he's of course another unmemorable and not all that good villain. I have no idea why Marvel is always doing this. They do so well at the heroes and yet most of their villains aren't very good. Just a generic backstory and the motivation is clichéd. The Ancient One was his old mentor and she abandoned him because of the dark magic of his and now he wants revenge. It wasn't bad, I just don't understand why Marvel hasn't made a 100% fantastic villain. Sure there's Loki, Ultron, Thanos and the Netflix villains and some others like Zemo, but come on. Something else I have to talk about is the effects. The C.G.I here is probably the most in any M.C.U movie. I mean it's all over the place and it reminds me a lot of Inception. I haven't seen that but a lot of people said that and from what I have seen, they're absolutely right. These effects are really head-trippy and really creative. You have to see the movie to know what I mean. This movie is also funny. A few of the funny scenes were in the trailers but still, this was another funny M.C.U movie. Especially Benedict Cumberbatch, he had a lot of funny scenes. The Stan Lee cameo was pretty cool and funny too. It was during the chase scene when Steven and Mordo are trying to get away from Kaecilius and his men. The music is also pretty good here. And the whole look to the movie's good. Especially Doctor Strange himself. The look of him is fantastic, even though Benedict's face doesn't look like his. But I can overlook that. The whole suit is really good looking and cool.

Now as far as negatives, there's only a few things. The pacing, for the most part is really good, but at times, they kinda skipped over a few things and some things were too fast. But for the most part, the pacing was good. Another is the whole villain thing with Kaecilius not being that good of a villain. Don't get me wrong, the performance was really good. That's something else all the M.C.U villains. Even if they're not that memorable and kinda generic, the performances by the actors are still very, very good. But still, I wish they made him better. And my last and biggest problem with the movie is Dormammu. Don't get me wrong. This isn't Galactus bad. Like in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. It's not as bad as the way they did Galactus there. But I really wish they had Dormammu look the way he did in the comics. But aside from those flaws, this is another fantastic M.C.U movie and I can't wait to see Steven fight side by side with the Avengers against Thanos in Infinity War. This is a great movie and if you're an M.C.U fan, I would definetly recommend it. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.