Salvador Dali's psychedelic backgrounds meet Mortal Kombat characters, but it's still a Marvel movie

Rating: 6/10 (18 November 2016)

If you want to get straight to the review itself, skip the first paragraph.
Before anything, i just want to let you know this is my first review, so despite knowing that many people have established a certain system in their reviews and have everything divided into sections, i wont even try to go there, and instead give you my honest opinions and impressions to hopefully give you some insight.
So, let's get straight to business. The very basic question would be, is the movie good and worth watching? Yes. And no. It really depends on a couple of things, and it all pretty much boils down to what a fan of Marvel universe and/or Marvel movies you are.
There might be a couple of very minor spoilers ahead, so be warned. I'll play fair and won't spoil anything important, but still, i feel like it's worth letting you know first.
The very first thing that made me wonder if i really am watching a Marvel, very anticipated, very well funded movie, is something in the opening scene. We are shown the movie's antagonist, Kaecilius. While Mads Mikkelsen's performance is stellar, as expected from such a good actor, his whole appearance is something you'd except in a Mortal Kombat B movie, not this movie. Even his lackeys have this 80s baddie and his gang vibe, that kind of doesn't fit in a Marvel movie, at least not for me.
Benedict Cumberbatch also performs very well, to me, the way he just fits the character of Doctor Strange was very similar to how Robert Downey Jr. made me think "Oh my god, THIS is the perfect fit for Iron Man" when i first saw the first Iron Man. There isn't really much else to say, he just fits. Perfectly.
What doesn't fit perfectly is the movie's pacing. Something that was bugging me a lot was how little time is given to the establishment of certain environments and scenes. You know where you are, what you are watching and what's going on, but that's pretty much it. This makes you feel that despite the fact that the number of sets that the story takes place in is not small, it somehow ends up feeling like it. Thanks to this sort of strange pacing of some scenes, we end up with a lot of information and not a lot of time to process it. And thanks to that, you just float through the story, without being given enough time to enjoy it properly. As a result, Dr. Strange is one of those movies you have to see twice or thrice in order to let everything soak in and give your brain time to focus on things you didn't have time to process when watching earlier. This is a reoccurring problem with Marvel movies, but i guess it is something to be expected when you need to squeeze rich story into short screen time.
One more thing comes to mind, the story itself. It's not BAD. It makes sense, it IS enjoyable, entertaining etc., HOWEVER, i can very honestly say that what you see in the trailers are pretty much the major points of the movie. And i mean those shots itself, like Dr. Strange and Mordo standing in front of a shifting city. That's it. The story is there, but the visuals just push it into the background as you are bombarded with psychedelic scenery after another, and an explosion after explosion, and a spell after spell... and before you know it, you feel as if you're watching some sort of a CGI demo reel that's just wrapped around some sort of a story that was quickly put together to give the movie at least some sort of a shape. There are some scenes that give a friendly nod to the rest of the Marvel movies, such as The Ancient One talking briefly about the Avengers or the fact that we are shown another Infinity Stone, but all that just feels like it's there just to remind us that these movies take place in the same universe.
To be quite honest, i personally felt a little empty after seeing the movie, like something was missing, or like that wasn't all there was to the story. And these feelings are not without basis, that's how the movie is. It just doesn't feel like a part of this massive undertaking that Marvel has been doing for a long time now, and i know that there isn't much that could connect the story of the movie to the rest of the Marvel universe until the very ending, but still i feel like it could have been done better, and the movie COULD be a lot more satisfying to watch. But as it is, it just leaves you a little disappointed after watching it. Not even the soundtrack stands out, no catchy, memorable themes, it's just there, in the background of all the stunning visuals, just like everything else in the movie.
So, for the verdict. If you are a Marvel fan like me, definitely watch the movie, but don't expect much. Marvel has a tendency to not do that much of a good job when exploring new territories, and Dr. Strange was in the realm of uncharted waters, and as a result, it falls a bit short, just like Antman or the early Hulk movies.