It's almost November now, and I don't think many could say it has been a good year for Superhero movies. With the exception of the decent Deadpool, Marvel movies have been trotting out their safe, bland, slightly boring Avengers fair. X-men squandered the goodwill created by Future Past with their own crappy third entry. And DC have been doing their damnedest to release nothing but awful movies. I hadn't seen a superhero movie this whole year that I would actually call good. Doctor Strange is good.
Benedict Cumberbatch seems an unlikely choice as a superhero lead. Stereotypical British super villain maybe, but as far as these movies go, they have always favoured two-fisted beefcakes over skinny intellectual types. But it turns out to be an inspired choice to present an altogether different kind of superhero.
I didn't know a damn thing about Jonathan Strange as a comic book character, going into this movie, so I had no idea what to expect. The movie starts with a fancy new Marvel logo that goes on for about twenty minutes. When the movie gets to start, we are treated to a snappy, efficiently established story. Cumberpatch does his version of House, giving us a brilliant yet arrogant neurosurgeon who pisses all over his colleagues. He ruins his hands in a car accident, and when cutting edge medicine fails to get his livelihood back he journeys to Nepal, to find what he hoped was an experimental new medical technique but is actually a temple of reality bending wizards instead.
There are a few things that makes Strange stand out. Firstly, it knows how to balance its action and plot development. There's none of this previous business of frontloading all the exposition and then saving the action for a 40 minute slug out at the end. Speaking of the action as well, it is consistently more visually interesting and imaginative than anything Marvel has thrown at us before. This is a psychedelic world where architecture rapidly refolds and forms fractals throughout fights. It feels like all the most interesting parts of Inception thrown in to a much more condensed package.
Then there's the humour. Marvel have always depended on a smartarse lead to throw out smart remarks, but this one feels a lot funnier than other superhero movies. Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton have a wonderful chemistry, where they bounce quick little bits off one another over cups of tea, often making the thing feel closer to a BBC period piece than a Disney blockbuster.
The final difference is that we have a protagonist who doesn't want to fight people. Dr Strange is constantly reminding people he's a Doctor (goddamnit) and its not his job to punch people or blowup monsters. It's refreshing to see a smarter hero who tries to resolve conflict by refusing to join in.
Strange is a funny, clever and thoroughly entertaining comic book movie that is perfect for people who are tired of comic book movies. Go watch it.
Don't Like Marvel Movies? Watch This One Instead
It's almost November now, and I don't think many could say it has been a good year for Superhero movies. With the exception of the decent Deadpool, Marvel movies have been trotting out their safe, bland, slightly boring Avengers fair. X-men squandered the goodwill created by Future Past with their own crappy third entry. And DC have been doing their damnedest to release nothing but awful movies. I hadn't seen a superhero movie this whole year that I would actually call good. Doctor Strange is good.
Benedict Cumberbatch seems an unlikely choice as a superhero lead. Stereotypical British super villain maybe, but as far as these movies go, they have always favoured two-fisted beefcakes over skinny intellectual types. But it turns out to be an inspired choice to present an altogether different kind of superhero.
I didn't know a damn thing about Jonathan Strange as a comic book character, going into this movie, so I had no idea what to expect. The movie starts with a fancy new Marvel logo that goes on for about twenty minutes. When the movie gets to start, we are treated to a snappy, efficiently established story. Cumberpatch does his version of House, giving us a brilliant yet arrogant neurosurgeon who pisses all over his colleagues. He ruins his hands in a car accident, and when cutting edge medicine fails to get his livelihood back he journeys to Nepal, to find what he hoped was an experimental new medical technique but is actually a temple of reality bending wizards instead.
There are a few things that makes Strange stand out. Firstly, it knows how to balance its action and plot development. There's none of this previous business of frontloading all the exposition and then saving the action for a 40 minute slug out at the end. Speaking of the action as well, it is consistently more visually interesting and imaginative than anything Marvel has thrown at us before. This is a psychedelic world where architecture rapidly refolds and forms fractals throughout fights. It feels like all the most interesting parts of Inception thrown in to a much more condensed package.
Then there's the humour. Marvel have always depended on a smartarse lead to throw out smart remarks, but this one feels a lot funnier than other superhero movies. Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton have a wonderful chemistry, where they bounce quick little bits off one another over cups of tea, often making the thing feel closer to a BBC period piece than a Disney blockbuster.
The final difference is that we have a protagonist who doesn't want to fight people. Dr Strange is constantly reminding people he's a Doctor (goddamnit) and its not his job to punch people or blowup monsters. It's refreshing to see a smarter hero who tries to resolve conflict by refusing to join in.
Strange is a funny, clever and thoroughly entertaining comic book movie that is perfect for people who are tired of comic book movies. Go watch it.