A Well Made Superhero Film--But an Overused Formula

Rating: 7/10 (15 November 2016)

I was happy to get to go see "Doctor Strange" this week, after hearing good things about it both from comic book enthusiasts and several friends with kids who are not as much of a geek as I am. That said, I went into the movie with high expectations. And while the movie was good overall, I walked away not having my expectations quite met.
Let's start with the good. There is indeed much to like about "Doctor Strange". The film gives a healthy helping of back story, fleshing out a character that I myself didn't know too much about, despite having read some of his earliest appearances from the Stan Lee silver age era in the 1960's. By and large the film is pretty solid in the storytelling department, and the actors all turn out strong performances.
That said, the downside to this movie is that it uses a banal superhero movie formula that at this point has come to feel quite trite. Super-rich, super-smart white guy gets some super-powers, there's a bad guy, the bad guy is hellbent on destroying the universe (the dimension?) and, golly gee, in the end the superhero saves the day.
OK, so it's a little more nuanced than that. Still, it just felt like it was a movie that was made on a cookie cutter formula. It's far from a bad movie, but there are others quite like it--and perhaps others that do what it does, only better.
All that said, I have to go with 7/10 stars for this one.