Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange doesn’t always make sense — but so what? It’s a mind-blowing special-effects extravaganza, and the most exciting comic-book flick since “Deadpool.”

Doctor Strange is thrilling in the way a lot of other Marvel movies are. But what makes it unique is that it’s also heady in a way most Marvel movies don’t dare to be. It’s eye candy and brain candy.

Cumberbatch fits Doctor Strange like a pair of snap-tight surgical gloves, in yet another MCU triumph. Beautifully designed, brilliantly executed.

The upshot: The movie develops a distinctively trippy identity.

Doctor Strange is at its most entertaining when it’s unapologetically different from anything Marvel has done before.

Doctor Strange is the psychedelic kung-fu spectacle that Marvel hoped director Scott Derrickson would deliver, but it’s got a strange problem – the doctor himself.

People who ask nothing more for their money than a lot of nerve-scrambling computerized special effects might get through Doctor Strange, another in a long line of lengthy, stupid and unbearable Marvel Studios comic books on film, with minimal brain damage.

One of my favorite movies. The movie is very well edited and the story is perfect.

There was a lot of cool looking things in this movie and some cool fight scenes. Kind of a boring movie though and a lot of it don't make sense either.

Cumberbatch was fine in this but imagine Dr. House playing Doctor Strange..

Doctor Strange is a movie that is based off comic book and is one of marvels best characters ever created, yet they failed to capture what made the character so interesting in the first place. This movie tries to make this story of the master mystic arts as believable as possible but in doing so makes the story into a boring snooze fest. The story follows are title character trying to recover from an accident that has left him with serious nerve damage in his hands. Meanwhile the antagonist of this story is trying bring an evil entity of mass destruction to our world. Why is he doing this? So we can all live forever. Yes because the king of a place the dark dimension is totally trustworthy! All characters in this movie are underdeveloped and come off one dimensional. With the exception of our title character of course. But they don't really give us a reason to like him. Finally the way our protagonist beats our the big bad just seems lazy. In conclusion if you like Doctor Strange stick to the comic books, because they are ten times better than this pile of crap.

With the substance of a single McDonald's cheeseburger and all of the factory-made horribleness, Doctor Strange is a surprise contender for worst superhero movie of the year. Fortunately for Marvel, DC's depression-laced Batman v Superman and **** Suicide Squad still surpass it, as well as Fox's Deadpool, which is more akin to an abortion than a true film. Yet, Doctor Strange, an LSD infused piece of Marvel filmmaking makes a case for being just as bad through its own unique route. While Batman v Superman was overdone with too much going on, Suicide Squad was horrifically edited, and Deadpool was so edgy it cut its neck open, Doctor Strange is undone via quips. Even worse, it adds the classic horrible Marvel villain and simplistic plotting to the equation for one hell of a concoction. Fortunately, solid special effects and religious symbolism - which I am a **** for - really do help the movie out. Firstly, I will focus on the positives. The religious symbolism is a real soft spot for me and Doctor Strange demonstrates why. Adding any symbolism really adds an extra dimension to a film and the fact it is present at all truly warms my heart. Even better, the religion aspect truly works. From the plotting to the characterization, it all connects in the end. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), a brilliant but self-obsessed surgeon, is in a car accident and loses the ability to perform surgery due to nerve damage in his hands. This loss of his hands devastates him, but is through his own sin: pride and greed. Spending freely and always worshiping at a shrine of himself, Strange commits two mortal sins, which is not a great start. Thus, he is humbled and brought to his knees, forced to search for another avenue. Admittedly, an awful person being redeemed through the meeting of others and finding a cause greater than himself is also typical, but greatly executed in Doctor Strange. On the other side, we have Kaecillius (Mads Mikkelsen). Though under-explored and horrifically written as all other Marvel villains, Kaecillius represents the complete opposite. Seeking immortality, he strikes a deal with Dormammu - who is the equivalent of the devil - that he will allow Dormammu to conquer the Earth in return for that immortality. Though warned that this deal he struck will only end with his suffering, Kaecillius was consumed by his own pride and greed, representing the opposite of Doctor Strange, who wound up rising above his own demons (the one great quote from this film: "We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them," applies here). Additionally, the special effects are quite solid. The dark dimension is terrifically crafted, while all of the spells are delightfully brought to life. Doctor Strange manages to suspend disbelief by creating a world that is both incredible to look at and thoroughly inventive. There are not many films with special effects akin to those in Doctor Strange, not even Inception. Though elements of Inception's effects can be seen here, Doctor Strange undeniably dials it up to 11 and sees what magic it can create. That said, there is one moment where the special effects were horrible. When Strange first meets with the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and she knocks him into some kind of warp, the effects of him leaving and returning to Earth are horrifically fake looking. This leads terrifically into the negatives. Before diving into the "comedic" "relief", Doctor Strange has many other problems. The action being one of these issues. From a comically dumb battle between two people's "astral bodies" that poorly balances between absurd and intense to the final battle in which everything is fixed with a deus ex machina (hell, all of their powers are deus ex machina's), Doctor Strange exemplifies typical. Devoid of any invention beyond its mythology, the film is content to rest on the mystery of its characters powers to wow audiences, as well as how cool everything looks. Similarly to the problems that plagued Civil War, Marvel shows a willingness to simply include elements that look cool, instead of truly challenging its audience with ambitious action set pieces. Rather, it seeks to distract and disorient, in order to keep us from noticing that the film has nothing up its sleeves. Character-wise, the film is typical Marvel nonsense. The villain is horribly crafted, except to create a parallel to Strange. The film goes to great lengths to showcase this parallel, in hopes that it will be satisfactory enough. Yet, it cloaks its villain in a veil of mystery and never let's us see what makes him tick. In many regards, Kaecilius is a greatly sympathetic villain, as he has been fooled by Satan into believing falsehoods. He deserves understanding, reverence, and sympathies, not destruction. Additionally, Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) is terribly written. The funniest joke told with the film came after its release from director Scott Derrickson.