Visually Refreshing, Fundamentally Stale

Rating: 7/10 (7 November 2016)

After the success of Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014, Marvel Studios started looking at all of those comic book characters previously thought to be too niche to be made into movies through a different lens. Now not just the Iron Men and Batmans get their own movies but also the little guys as well. This means we are bound to get come good copy cat movies and some bad ones. I am here to tell you where Doctor Strange falls on this spectrum.
Benedict Cumberbatch at first seemed like a strange(no pun intended) choice to me when it was first announced. Not that Ben would not be able to handle the role but he seems to me like the kind of guy who would feel above such roles. Cumberbatch brings a sort of legitimacy to the table that other than Robert Downey Jr. I don't think we have seen in a Marvel movie. This guy brings it and never feels out of place. He is funny and charming which seems like a must for a Marvel movie at this point but Cumberbatch elevates the playing field here. The rest of the cast is also filled out with studs such as Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mads Mikkelsen, Tilda Swinton and Rachel McAdams. I can't say a bad thing about one of them and this movie is no different. I can appreciate the diversity of the cast, even though Tilda Swintons' character may be a bit white washed.
As shown in trailers and other countless promotional material, director Scott Derrickson uses some pretty impressive visual effects to morph the world of the movie. I originally thought this would become intrusive and headache inducing but it is used well. It seemed that just before I would start getting dizzy the world would snap back to normal. I can also appreciate that even when the world is spinning and the background turns into something out of a Spirograph, that all the action is clearly visible. So many action scenes are ruined by shaking the camera all over the place and I am very much in the camp that likes to see what the hell is going on.
As far as the story goes no new ground is being broken here. It follows the formula that has been cemented into the super hero movie genre. The hero's journey where two thirds into the movie the hero discovered that the villain he has been fighting pales in comparison to the power of the real evil that has been controlling our secondary villain the whole movie. Then it seems like the way to defeat the main villain is solved much quicker than the semi-villain. I know writers were brought in to try to punch up the script pretty late in the project but they were not able to save the ending from being somewhat underwhelming.
With all of the enjoyable things that Doctor Strange does and the small list of thing is does wrong you would think Doctor Strange would be getting a better score from me. My problem lies in the fact that these super hero movies are starting to feel very cookie cutter to me. There are not many risks being taken in these movies and they just want to find a way to keep giving people the same things with different utility belt wrappings. To be fair the other side of the spectrum is DC who can't seem to figure out not only how to make a good movie but just a movie that does not seem to spit in the face of the source material. Doctor Strange is not as good as the Guardians of the Galaxy's and Ant-Mans of the world but it is certainly better than Suicide Squad and Batman Vs. Superman which is good enough for at least some of my approval.