Spectacular effects, bland plot, recycled Marvel formula

Rating: 7/10 (14 November 2016)

My background knowledge going in: I was first introduced to Doctor Strange in the 90s Spider-Man cartoon. Mary Jane joined a cult, so Spiderman had to get assistance from Doctor Strange in order to save her. Those were some of my favorite episodes. Good stuff. I've also seen Marvel's 2007 animated Doctor Strange movie, which was very good.
The good: This movie's visual effects are amazing. Warping space, time, and reality has never looked so trippy. Watch it in 3D - it's worth the ticket price.
The bad: This movie sticks so close to Marvel's tired formula that it also suffers from the same shortcomings as Marvel's other movies (bland villains, jokes per minute that often feel forced, unnecessary girlfriend character, world-ending plot that somehow never feels like much of a threat, underwhelming climax) and ultimately unfortunately feels kinda bland. I hate to admit this as a fan of the Marvel movies, but this felt overly predictable and full of recycled elements in a few too many ways.
Characters: Isn't Doctor Strange himself essentially the same character as Tony Stark/Iron Man? From his personality (talented but arrogant), to his backstory (rich showoff whose injury leads to humility), to his penchant for making sarcastic jokes and pop culture references, they're almost the same guy.
The villain and world-ending plot of this movie, you've seen already in numerous other Marvel movies. How's the underdeveloped bad guy and his world-ending plot of this movie different from the bland bad guys and world-ending plots of Thor the Dark World, or Guardians of the Galaxy, or so on?
Dr Strange himself feels like the only character with a fully fleshed out personality in the movie. No one else seems to have enough of a personality to be understandable. The villains, in particular, had no personality whatsoever. And Dr. Strange's allies were a bit too baffling to make much sense. I understand they're supposed to be mysterious people, but as soon as we learn a little bit about them, the movie moves on, so we never quite get to know them or their motivations. This becomes a problem when they start to play bigger roles in the main plot, even though we still don't really know them and who they are as characters. And the romantic interest was weak. She was oddly played for laughs more than as a serious part of the movie. The joke was she's unusually underwhelmed and unimpressed by all the magic. It's amusing, but if the movie won't even take her seriously, it's hard to seriously believe that these two are in love at all.
Music: Michael Giacchino is usually a talented composer, but I have to call him out here; he may be getting a little lazy. His theme for Doctor Strange sounds way too much like he simply copied and only slightly modified his own Star Trek theme. They sound very similar. Who let him get away with this?
Inconsistencies: Lots of apparent inconsistencies with the rest of the Marvel movies here. Maybe the Marvel Cinematic Universe is getting too big for its own writers to keep up. The timeline of events in this movie don't quite match up with the other movies, notably the Doctor Strange reference in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), which was an exciting easter egg back when we first saw it, but now makes little sense.
Final thoughts: This is a movie that's generally fun, enjoyable, effects-filled, and action-packed, but it's a movie that plays it very safe and ends up rather formulaic, instead of daring to do much of anything to surprise you. Marvel has a formula that works for them and the success of their movies can't be denied, so you might ask why fix what's broken? But this is the 14th Marvel Cinematic Universe movie so far, and the old Marvel formula's getting a little repetitive. I'd like to see them take bolder risks and go in more unexpected directions than what we got here.