Road to Endgame: Doctor Strange

Directed by Scott Derrickson
Release Date: November 4th, 2016
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mads Mikkelsen
Box Office Worldwide: $677,718,395

We’ve made it to the best movie in the MCU if you want to drop acid: Doctor Strange.

I’M NOT CONDONING ACID… but IF you’re going to do it, watch Doctor Strange and let me know if you survive. Or maybe you’re on acid right now and reading this! I’ll try and splash colorful images and kaleidoscopes in the article.

Up front, I’ll say Doctor Strange was hurt by Infinity War because of how awesome Stephen Strange is in that movie. Benedict Cumberbatch is good in Doctor Strange, but he takes his character to another level in Infinity War. Strange was possibly my favorite character in Thanos’ attack on Earth. Doctor Strange is still a fun flick, but it hasn’t aged as well as some of the other movies in the MCU.

FUN FACT: Dormammu’s voice/facial look is Benedict Cumberbatch mixed with a different actor’s voice!

Anyways, let’s review Doctor Strange!

Positives

• The story is very similar to Tony Stark’s but the one difference I love is that Stephen Strange is a complete prick. Tony at least seems like a fun guy in the first Iron Man, but Strange is arrogant, condescending and is a colossal a-hole to the chick he loves, or at least has a crush on. I love how arrogant and rude he is. I don’t want to root for the guy in the beginning, but that’s what makes it different from other MCU movies, and it’s super entertaining! Even with how big of a richard he is the movie still does a good job to change your perspective on him after he gets in the car accident, hits rock bottom, and then climbs out a different person. You go from wanting to kick the guy’s ass to cheering for his ass!
• I liked how they didn’t spend a lot of time on his backstory. The movie showed us he was a dick, got in an accident and we get his Dr. Strange training pretty early on.
• Wong is terrific. We don’t get a lot of him in the film, but I love the stubborn goof-ball listening to Beyonce on his phone! Plus, he works really well with Dr. Strange. Especially when Strange is trying to get Wong to laugh… good clean family humor! Give me more Wong!

• “Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain.” I love this ending! It’s trippy and much different than anything we’ve had in the MCU prior. I love it’s creativity!

• The visuals are obviously terrific. All the magic-y stuff looks great. The best visual is when Strange and Mordo are battling Kaecilius through New York, and you see the city turned inside-out, upside down, etc. Some real fun stuff.
• There were some people pissed off that The Ancient One was cast as a white woman instead of an Asian man, but I really liked Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One. She, along with his romantic interest Christine Palmer, is the push that Strange needed to stop being a douche. And she delivered one of my favorite lines of the entire MCU: “Death is what gives life meaning.” I was like, “whoa that’s deep.”
• The first scene when the Cloak of Levitation catches Stephen and he appears as Dr. Strange from the comics is awesome.

Negative

• My biggest negative of this movie is that Strange and his mystic arts aren’t nearly as neat as they are in Infinity War. In Infinity War we get to see Strange create all those arms and create, like, 50 different Stranges and use the bright red whips when he fights Thanos. We don’t see a lot of cool Dr. Strange-ey mystic arts spells in the first movie. We get some cool stuff from The Ancient One and Kaecilius, but not a lot from Strange himself.
• Speaking of Kaecilius, he is… blah. Take away Malekith from Thor: The Dark World and Kaecilius is the most forgettable villain in the MCU. His motive isn’t compelling. He betrayed The Ancient One to put the world in darkness in cahoots with Dormammu because… he’s pissed? I guess there’s a comic prelude to the movie that says Kaecilius lost his family and thought The Ancient One could bring them back, but that’s not in the movie so he’s a negative.
• I’m indifferent on the action scenes in Doctor Strange. They’re really great concepts and set in great settings and events such as the fight in the mirror dimension with New York bending around them and also the final battle when everything else is in reverse. Those are great ideas for battles that haven’t been executed before, but they turned out to be… not as good as I’d hope. There not bad but not great.

Overall Grade: C+

• I gave it a C+ (same as Thor). It’s a good movie! Nothing spectacular about it but it is a good movie that lost some flair to it once Infinity War came out but good none the less.

MCU Ranking

1. Guardians of the Galaxy
2. Avengers: Endgame
3. The Avengers
4. Captain America: Civil War
5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
6. Iron Man
7. Captain America: The First Avenger
8. Ant-Man
9. Avengers: Age of Ultron
10. Thor
11. Doctor Strange (Just ‘cuz it’s towards the bottom, doesn’t mean it’s bad… these are all really good!)
12. Iron Man 3
13. Iron Man 2
14. The Incredible Hulk
15. Thor: The Dark World