Doc Strange movie/video

[TheMeanDM]

Anyone watched it? Reviews? Opinions?

Been thinking about renting it, just because.

[Jerthanis]

The Doctor Strange animated movie illustrates the origin story of the good doctor, introducing us to him during his life as a successful, though arrogant and tortured brain surgeon, and leading him into the magical world.

It's a suitably dramatic take on his origin, and it goes perhaps a shade deeper than other summaries of his origin story tend to be, and the story itself is a very strong one thematically, but a few elements of the style and presentation of the movie bother me.

Much of the mysticism is extremely shallow philosophy. There isn't much sense of the occult pacts and ritual, but a lot of new age "mind over matter" style of magic. Much of the mystic training and battles are essentially beefy guys (and gals) swinging swords at each other. The battles themselves are stylish, but there's a huge population of characters who don't matter even tangentially to the plot, who die suddenly and without purpose. The fact that each has their own separate magical gimmick, each based on some impressive, but mostly physical feat, takes away from the feeling of magic and makes it feel like a silly kung fu movie. I like Kung fu movies, so I still enjoyed it a lot, but it didn't feel like they were using magic to me.

My other major problem is that the problem is solved through Deus Ex Machina. Very heavy handed Deus Ex Machina. Dr. Strange is victorious not due to careful planning, skill, chutzpah, cleverness, or even "I found just the right spell for the occassion" (which is the DEM I was expecting, and had prepared myself for) but from dumb freakin' luck and Deus Ex Machina.

In all, I'd give it a 7 out of 10... it was pretty good. The character driven story at the beginning through the middle was excellent, the action scenes were well crafted even if they felt decidedly wuxia instead of spell-magic, and while the story trailed off, it still had that first half of surprisingly touching drama.

I'd definitely recommend watching it. It at the very least won't be time wasted.

Die hard Dr. Strange fans, like me, will be bothered by Wong having hair through the entire movie. It'll be made up by Baron Mordo being voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson.

[Gundato]

...

A Dr. Strange fan actually complaining about Deus Ex Machina? Now this I have to see :p

[Jerthanis]

...

A Dr. Strange fan actually complaining about Deus Ex Machina? Now this I have to see :p

It's hard to describe without spoilers, but suffice to say, Dr. Strange wins not because he has the right DEM spell, but simply because he has, without training or knowledge of spellcraft, an ability which wins simply because it does.

[Logos7]

I think its definiitely worth a download or a (cheap)rental, wouldn't buy it however.

I;d give it 8/10, I'd be much more sad about them butchering actual magical practices for a comic movie than psuedo new age mind over matter bits. I think they managed to introduce strange and his main rival and nemises (differnt folks) quickly, althought the throw away characters were a obvious/oblivious I think they did a preety damn decent job of differentiating the magics. Anything else would have been far more labourous i think. The GF who is not into comic books watched it and loved it, wanting to do something simular in a game if that tells you anything

But yeah,be preparerd to watch Magic- fu

Logos

[Stam]

...but simply because he has, without training or knowledge of spellcraft, an ability which wins simply because it does.
...but only in that situation, against such a creature. (Yes, I'm tiptoeing carefully here in an attempt to avoid spoilers.) Against pretty much anything not of that particular composition, it wouldn't have worked and he'd have been toast. :smalltongue:

[Xuincherguixe]

I was fairly disapointed in it.

It had great animation and some wonderful monsters. But it just didn't seem all that great. It's odd, because I really liked the Ultimate Avengers movie. But then I can see that Dr. Strange could be a hard character to work with.

But I don't read the comic books either. Still I got the impression this wasn't like those at all. I almost feel like the best thing about the movie was the cover. If you shine some light on it and move it around a bit the magic glowiness changes colour. It's kind of neat.

[RandomNPC]

the movies got magic-fu out the yin-yang.

outside of that, at the very least it tells a good story.