A weaker entry from the MCU

Rating: 6/10 (25 October 2016)

As a Marvel fan I will have to admit that Doctor Strange is one of the franchise's weaker entries along with Thor the dark world and some of its earlier solo pieces. The film had no focus and the pacing was off a lot of times.
However to start of I would like to point out the positives, One of the most well done parts of this film is establishing the absurdist, strange and sometimes trippy world of the famed sorcerer supreme. As the recent All new all different doctor strange storyline does so very well this side of the Marvel universe is being represented quite well, in the comic book continuity and in the Marvel cinematic universe we are really seeing Doctor Strange in a sort of return to forms with all of this absurd and all around 'strange' world that is the mystic and interdimensional side of the Marvel universe. I think this was a good approach and representation to the interdimensional side of this vast comicbook continuity.
Another job well done would be in my opinion Benedict Cumberbatch, he is an actor who can sometimes be really good as one that everyone loves to hate and hates to love. The 'Draco Malfoy' of movies, BC as he quite often does portrays this snobbish know it all character in a great way that makes audience really find him annoying and overly arrogant. Now as BC so often portrays this character type I wouldn't say that this is some sort of a major acting breakthrough but all I can say is I guess it was a good casting choice for BC to play Doctor Strange.
Now the movie also as mentioned have several flaws one of them being a flaw that has been throughout the entire MCU, the villains. Once again we find ourselves in an MCU film where the villain has the most simplistic plans and is defeated by the most basic things, in the sense that they don't seem to pose any major threat at all. We did get introduced to the character of Dormammu but my god, the moment I saw him on screen it immediately reminded me of Galactus from 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer', Why MCU? Can you not have a good villain other than Loki. The film constantly foreshadows and references this coming villain but when he finally shows up he barely does anything at all. Just no. I guess the MCU can never have a good villain so they'll just have to keep bringing back Loki.
The pacing of the film was off too, scenes can sometimes be dragged along really slowly and at times days would go back in the matter of seconds. It really just seems like things sort of pop out left and right with no correlation. I haven't even mentioned the many impracticalities and parts that didn't make much sense at all. The story as the foundation/backbone of this film was sloppy and not done very well at all. But it does manage to get the job of establishing a different side of the MCU and a new character: Doctor Strange done.
Overall, yes this is probably one of the weakest MCU films but it isn't completely irredeemable, it can be hard sometimes to do origin stories so I would expect a second entry to be a lot better simply because this established world of Doctor Strange is a very interesting side to explore in my opinion and the character of Doctor Strange was established quite well as well which does make me quite excited for the following films where we actually see Strange interact with the other members of the MCU.