I remember watching this movie when it came out. The merry band of Me, my Uncle, my Dad, and my best friend Jackson strolled into the theater I worked at that day, we split into 2 units The Ancient Ones (my dad and uncle) and The Children (Jackson and I). This is an irrelevant story but it’s context will help in my actual review of the movie later on…
The Actual Review
Breaking Things Up in 7 factors
VFX: What a spectacular visual experience this movie gives, this movies VFX is a 5/7 sometimes the CGI models were poor and occasionally my eyes vomit in disgust because of the copious about of Orange ‘magic stuff’ it’s having to consume (that kinda harsh). Honestly most of the visual spectacle that the mirror realm makes up for what I feel are VFX design errors.
Music and Sound (my shit): The main theme of this music is great but Is grossly underutilized. It’s a great motif and I feel that they should have made variations on the Theme to represent the other characters and Stranges curiosity and Hubris. Essentially with the Music I feel it was a generic slob of Fantasy/Action Non copyright music which is fine but they had a real diamond in Strange’s Theme which was only utilized when he killed the cultist and when he’s dying. They could have done a lot more with Strange’s Theme unfortunately they choose the safer option );. I guess in a similar way I feel the studio could have done better with sound, every punch is the same, everyone’s magic sounds the same. The only Sonic spectacles in this movie are when Dr.Strange traps Mads and the whole Suit of Sound in the Dark Dimension. Other that that it’s pretty par for the course. 4/7
Acting: I feel that everyone in this movie does an amazing job but nothing is Oscar worthy, maybe later in life I’ll have more to say in this field but right now I don’t. 4/7
Cinematography: nothing crazy honestly once again the mirror dimension scenes kind of carry the hat for this factor the reversing time shot at the end is probably the best scene to setting melding in the movie. 4/7
Relevancy to the Other movies: This is kinda a marvel x-factor thing but marvel has made bad movies good with the inclusion of other movies and has also made good movies bad. This movie was Marvels first test to see if the magical parts of the comic books would meld well with the audience and thus it sets up a lot of good characters that we’ll likely be seeing in the future. Mordu, Wong, Dr.Palmer, and the Ancient One all could be given futures in future projects which is good, but ultimately the only thing abundantly relevant for the mcu in this movie is Dr.Stranges Origin, Dormommu, Kaesillious and most of the plot doesn’t matter in the main context of the mcu. Even the fact that most of the Sanctums fell has already been made obsolete. 3/7. It was a good start on magic and a good introduction to the time stone.
Fight Choreography: Could have been much better, my main argument is that instead of having these wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers who know hundreds of spells have their own unique ways of fighting and unique spells to use instead they choose to have everyone of them use some weird stringy conjuration to fight with. 3/7
Plot: I don’t want to talk too much longer on this but I’ll say right now it’s a 3/7 because of Kaecilius. The main villain syndrome, Kaecilius is not a compelling villain at all yet he’s written like he’s trying to indoctrinate Strange into his cult throughout the whole movie, trying to prove that he can’t trust the ancient one. Problem is he already doesn’t trust the Ancient One; so what about him getting Strange to join him, that’s relevant. No it really isn’t Strange has no reason to join him and is never given one past the idea he might just want to betray the Ancient One. So what then if Kaecilius wasn’t in the movie who should be the villain Mordo? The Ancient One? No they were written well I think but ultimately even their character arch’s didn’t require Kaecilius. No the villain should have been Dr.Strange Himself, of that is to say his hubris. Stranges curiosity and big headedness could have made it so he accidentally unleashed Dormommus forces (like he has many times in the books). This would have made the Ancient One’s death scene even more powerful as while Dr.Strange and Her talk it would be much more about her forgiveness to him and her final teaching more powerful. It also would have given Mordo more of a reason to dislike him, and would have made a more powerful lesson for Strange. TLDR: Kaecilius feels unnecessary and a plot focused around Dr.Strange fixing is mistakes could have driven the plot point of letting go of hubris even further than having Kaecilius as a interim version of future Strange did.
4/7
This movie feels ironical Safe given it’s subject matter, but if you’re wanting to have a good time watching a marvel movie, this is also a safe option. Hoping they get a little experimental with the Multiverse of Madness though
My Final Word
So yeah I lied that whole thing at the beginning wasn’t too relevant to how I feel about the movie, but it is relevant as to why I’m writing this review. You see I mentioned I watched this with Jackson and I still remember that this was the movie that started our agreement that we’d start watching the mcu movies together with our other friends. And after 5 year since that movie came out we haven’t missed one, so as I wait to watch Shang-Chi with him and other friends I’ve been reminiscing on where the years have gone recently. Ultimately now we’re summiting the ending of our tradition, often times now I watch movies before they release and Jackson is soon to move states, but like this movie shows we must all find new paths someday and as the Ancient One says in different context The End is what makes things beautiful. So to my friends Joseph who makes me like movies I hate, Sawyer who makes me think harder about what I can accept and what I cannot accept in movies, and to Jackson who’s been with me for all these god damn movies since The Dark World I’ll say Damn I hope Spider-Man 3 is a good end to this era and thanks for putting up with me talking throughout all these fucking things it’s been a real pressure sitting next to you guys for all these years.
-Reed Fenway Wilson
The End