Fantastic, wonderful, stunning visuals.

Rating: 10/10 (15 November 2016)

People say it's formulaic. So is everything else and everything good. According to many scholars there are between 3 and no more than 100 different stories and everything is a variation on them. Look up the Seven Basic Plots. Arrogant successful man does foolish thing and destroys his health and career. All mainstream treatments fail. Logic, science fail. Man desperate, hears of mystical cure, and pursues it to to exotic foreign country where he meets spiritual gurus who takes him on a magical trip. Then he finds out it's part of an age old struggle of good an evil. Finally he struggles and fights till he finds a new home and a new life. Sounds familiar huh? So what?
It's well done, good acting, good writing, good story. Astounding visuals. See it in 3d for the full experience. The glorious visuals are not tacked on, they are there for a purpose, and serve the story. They trace right back to the comic book as well. They even copied the artistic style. Benedict Cumberbatch is perfect and it's different role for him. All the actors are good, and there are many characters you care about. Marvel continues to blend in humor as well, right in the midst of the action and what could be done dark and gritty. Thank god they don't go there. It's still a very serious and even tragic story, but it celebrates life as well. It's definitely a MCU film but even so has a very fresh feel to it.