*Originally written October 27th, 2016*
"Life is Strange"
While it suffers from the usual strains of a superhero origin story, Doctor Strange somehow manages to be unique, original and the weirdest thing to come from the MCU yet.
While the story was fairly formulaic for the first act, I was sort of lost for most of the film. A lot of dialogue is characters spouting exposition that meant nothing to me. They talk about magic, spells, evil spirits and lots of mentions of mirror dimensions or something. It also lacks the weight of Civil War, which isn't Strange's fault, seeing as that was the build up of 8 years worth of films before it, but it just made Civil War have more of an impact.
While this lack of knowing what was happening should have diminished my entertainment, I was blown away by the visuals happening on screen. I never in a million years would have expected this to be as visually stunning as it was. It has some the weirdest and most unique visual style of any comic-book I've ever seen. While Guardians of the Galaxy was a zany risk for Marvel, Doctor Strange blows it out of the water.
While Benedict Cumberbatch was great in the lead (Once I put his American accent aside), his character is fairly similar to a lot of things we've seen before it. An arrogant, smug and somewhat obnoxious doctor who is brilliant at his job. He's sort of a mix of Tony Stark and Doctor House. He was great, and I look forward to seeing more of him in the MCU.
Where Marvel failed once again was in its villain. This is the biggest insult to me from Doctor Strange. Wasting Mads Mikkelsen. I have just finished watching all 3 seasons of Hannibal, and the man is a god. He's sadly wasted here in another throwaway and forgettable villain. Mads does the best he can with the little material he's given, but he deserves so much more than this.
So yeah, Doctor Strange is a lot better than I expected. I never really had any expectations for this, and while it fails on the villain front and its muddled storytelling, I was captivated by its creative, psychedelic and downright beautiful visuals.
7/10 Dans
Doctor Strange is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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