I just saw Doctor Strange and I have to say it's not as good as Ant Man, which I gave an 8.5/10 rating. In fact the plot is as basic as Suicide Squad, which I gave a rating of 5/10 but with dialogue that is confused as to whether it should be quippy or serious. Here's my SPOILER-FILLED review of Doctor Strange:
What worked:
1. Benedict Wong.
- He was easily the highlight of the film. All of his scenes were well acted including his line delivery. He's a very serious character and it works well for him. Unfortunately, literally every interaction he has with Strange, Strange is cracking a stupid ass joke breaking what could have been a fantastic dialogue. When Wong monologues about how Mads' character stole pages from one of their books and how it is severely dangerous, Strange cracks a joke and asks "do you ever laugh?". It felt as if Wong were acting a different version of Doctor Strange where the film had more gravity.
Overall, Wong is incredible but his dialogue with Strange turns into a joke when Strange constantly responds with stupid one-liners.
2. The visuals
- They weren't as good as GoTG, but they were cool. Some of the sequences didn't seem to really have any logical sense. In other words, why the hell are you creating all these squares and circles? The film doesn't initially explain why The Ancient one creates these symbols and when Strange sees them he says "teach me" which I thought was odd considering his character development shows us he's a very logical, if I can see it and observe it I can believe it kind of doctor.
3. Strange Character Development
-. Doctor Strange, when he first meets The Ancient One, has a bit of a dialogue about how he can fix his hands. TAO's response is that in order to fix your hands you must first believe with your mind and heal your spirit. She shows him these images of drawings depicting the level of ones spirit/soul which then infuriates him putting him into a shouting rage where he says "I don't believe in fairy tales". He goes on to say he though she could fix his hands.
This is odd for multiple reasons, specifically because he had a conversation with a man who's broken back got healed through TAO's teaching. This man, who Strange goes to see, told him that it was his mind and spirit that did the healing and Strange even finishes one of his sentences; "I didn't just heal my mind, my back w..." "also healed!". So at this point Strange is aware, given his intellect, that this person he saw was doing more than just physical operations to heal the dudes back.
So his outburst didn't seem to make sense considering he was already aware of the fact that this person whom he hadn't met wouldn't physically (via some sort of operation) fix him.
That's the first part.
The second part of my point is that directly following his outburst about not believing in fairytales, he pokes her in the chest to which she punches him back in the chest basically punching his spirit right outside of his body. When he comes back he says "teach me". So the development of his character seems to be inconsistent with who he was initially. Someone as logical as him wouldn't have just agreed to meet this "healer" after one conversation with a stranger. But he did. He wouldn't have had the outburst he had about fairytales when he already knew it had to do with a spiritual healing that physically healed the guy with the broken back.
Here's the last part.
TAO shows him these symbols as part of his training. She says "we create weapons and force fields..." etc. but the symbols don't seem to make sense. What do all those geometric shapes do? It just seemed random. No explanation was given for the magical thing she was making but he seemed fully convinced. It would have made sense if TAO had said "this symbol creates...x, y, z...and this is what I will teach you". That gives me context not just some random floating burning shapes.
What didn't work:
1. Poorly placed jokes EVERYWHERE.
- No, I'm not exaggerating. The first time we meet Doctor Strange, the music is something straight out of Guardians Of The Galaxy during a serious surgery. It's so opposite to the scene it turns what could have been a great moment into a laughable moment.
- Almost every scene where Strange has dialogue he tells a joke. It's just overkill and ruined a lot of the important scenes with Wong and The Ancient One.
2. The Ancient One
- In an alternate universe I picture the ancient one being less vocal and more strategic in how s/he interacts with Strange. A lot of her interactions with Strange including his training reminded me of The Last Airbender, which is unfortunate.
- Tilda is an incredible actor like Mads and Wong and unfortunately the dialogue is just basic and filled with jokes.
3. The plot is as basic as SS.
-Mads is an incredible actor, but completely under utilized and the reason for him going rogue doesn't make any sense. He wants Dormammu and the Dark Dimension to take over but to what end? This never gets explained in the film.
- The whole film is standard cookie cutter storytelling.
4. Villains: Mads and Dormammu defeat
- At the end, when Dormammu is taking over the world, Strange goes into the dark dimension. The Dark Dimension is a place where time does not exist, yet doctor strange with his Infinity Stone somehow brings time into a place without time and wants to "wager" with Dormammu. He then activates this time loop where he constantly visits Dormammu and says "Dormammu, I've come to Bargain" like 12 times and each time Dormammu kills him. Dormammu gets mad and says "what is happening" and strange quips that he's stuck him in a loop and will see him for the rest of his existence. BUT that if Dormammu meets his demand he'll undo the loop. Dormammu agrees!?!?!?! It's just a really poor climax, very similar to SS.
5. End credits scene
- This was clearly placed at the end to create buzz, which if that was the goal, then the goal was met but it didn't serve a larger plot purpose.
6/10