Monthly Archives: November 2016

The Innocents Review

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It’s time for another sad film. This one ranks up there with After.Life and that’s not a good thing. It’s a fairly strange film that doesn’t know if it wants to be a supernatural horror or just a plain ole snoozefest. It tries to find a balance between the two genres, but doesn’t do a particularly good job at either one. Ah well, at least the title can be true now. We were innocent to the fact that a horror film could be utterly boring while still trying for jump scares before this film. (Well…..that may not be entirely true) Let us dive into this review!

Giddens is offered a job as a caretaker. She will look after a rich guy’s two kids since he wants nothing to do with them. He likes being a single bachelor and doesn’t want kids cramping his style. He tried hiring someone else a while back, but she died so he needs a replacement. Giddens is appropriately reluctant to take on this task, but does so against her better judgment. Once she arrives at the estate, she finds that it is not an ordinary house. Ghosts seem to lurk about and many secrets are kept. The worst part is the fact that the two kids are possessed by ghosts at random points during the day. These ghosts belong to the bad influence who died and the other caretaker..who also died. Can Giddens cure these kids or will she have to head back home?

The premise doesn’t leave much room for optimism does it? It doesn’t even sound like a good film on paper and that’s before the execution drives you up the wall. Giddens isn’t a good protagonist and that should be the first warning bell. She always beats around the bush and lets the kids have their way with her. One of them tries to choke her and she only half heartedly resists. Luckily the land lady happened to show up. Giddens only has one good idea in the whole film and that is when she decides to leave. Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of turning back to fight the ghost one last time and it convinces her not to leave. Ah well, I guess listening to evil ghosts is a thing now. Her final plan of staying alone with the main antagonist to talk things over is also just as silly.

Miles is the host for the main villain. (Peter) He returns home under tricky circumstances as he was expelled from his school. The school didn’t say why they expelled him and Miles won’t say either. It’s implied that Peter influenced Miles to act in a rather course manner which forced the school to make a move. Miles isn’t concerned or upset about this though because now he can mess with Giddens. Whether he is possessed or not, the film makes it a point to say that he is not a good kid. He hides letters, plays pranks, and seems to enjoy making Giddens have a tough time of things.

Flora is the other kid and she’s supposed to be the nice member of the group. That may be true, but she has a tendency to disappear from time to time. She goes to a small place in the middle of nowhere to just stand around. Heavy rain showers won’t stop her either and she likes to pretend that she doesn’t hear the horror tropes calling after her. One of the ghosts yells several times to get her attention, but only the viewers notice. I can’t say that she was likable as she simply acted too oblivious the whole time.

The only reasonable character is the house maid. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much help either at times as she would take the side of the kids and didn’t like to talk about what had happened earlier. To an extent, it’s hard to blame her though as the kids were always nice and proper around her. She is one of the only characters to survive the whole ordeal. Sometimes, standing on the sidelines and not creating attention is the only way to live in these films, but I can’t say it’s the most heroic way to do things either. Still, leaving was probably the best decision that she could make.

All right, the film sounds boring, but is it really worthy of a 0? Absolutely!! First off, the fact that the villain inhabits Miles is an excuse to have him make advances on Giddens, which is quite disturbing. Keep in mind that he is a little boy and that he does succeed once and then again at the end. It makes for some really cringe inducing scenes that destroy the film. Even if the film had actually been semi decent, this would have thrown it back to the gutter. We don’t need those kinds of plots in our movies, lets keep them in oblivion.

The film’s backstory also makes no sense. The caretaker was apparently a nice and respectable person, but then she randomly falls into a twisted relationship with Peter. Apparently she liked the fact that he was a bad person and wanted to be treated badly. The film wanted to make everyone crazy in some way or form, but the change in personality was way too sudden. It continues when Giddens also starts to go crazy to the point where you’re supposed to wonder if the whole thing wasn’t just her being delusional. To clarify, the film happened, but the spirits may have just been things that she imagined. Most of the stuff that they did didn’t affect the real world in any way. The main point of suspicion would be how Miles acts at times, but it could all just be stuff that he learned from Peter.

I don’t think the ghost of Peter ever actually breaks any windows or opens doors either. Usually Giddens would just see him and fly into a panic. If it was just a delusion, then this would make sense. I personally prefer the supernatural elements to be real though so that doesn’t do the film any favors either. The ending is dark as well to remind you just what kind of film this is. Even kids aren’t safe apparently. The only bright spot here is the fact that the film isn’t very long so you don’t have to be looking at your watch too often. The best advice I can give you is simply not to watch the film. Lets face it, there are better flicks out there.

Overall, The Innocents is a stinker I’m afraid. You should forget about it and move on. This movie simply couldn’t do anything right and while it may have been trying to be clever with the title, it just reminds you that the film should have tried harder. If you want a good horror films where two kids have to fight off spirits..you’ll be waiting a while. That’s not exactly a proven formula for success. Instead, you should go watch some comic book films which will at least have good action scenes and plots to engage you in. It will ultimately provide you with the superior experience.

Overall 0/10

After.Life Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. A review of the unedited version would likely be even more negative. All thoughts below should be addressed as such.

Now this film is definitely one of those terrible ones that will make you want to take a nap. It’s not so much that the film is boring, but that it is just terrible with a really bad ending and characters who don’t have much common sense. There are few things as bad as having an ending where a crazed mass murderer ends up getting the better of the heroes and the police, but this film also makes sure to add in the fact that this guy is just going to keep on murdering people and now he can do it with a kid who he is grooming up to be the next generation’s version of him.

Do you know what the “best” part of this whole thing is? The fact that the poster takes away any question of whether the plot is real or not. To understand this, lets get into the premise. A girl gets into a car crash after storming away from her boy friend. She wakes up in the morgue, where a guy tells her that she is dead. He claims that she simply doesn’t know it yet and that he can talk to dead people. He lets her know that she can’t leave the building though…..and keeps her drugged so she doesn’t recover her strength. Anna starts to consider the fact that she might be dead. If she is…then shouldn’t she accept her second death to make the first one move on?

So, part of the mystery is whether she is alive or not. Well, the poster basically clears that up before the mystery even starts. It shows the reasoning that the main villain has and why he destroys people. He targets those individuals who he believes have already lost the will to live. He believes that they don’t deserve to live anymore as they will drag others down and so he targets them. He kidnaps them and convinces the world that they are dead. There’s no real question by the end that Anna is actually alive, but if you’ve seen the poster then you know this from the start. That being said, you’ll probably realize this right from the beginning anyway since this is the most logical way for the film to play out. Especially if you know that this film is an indie production, which always goes for extra grit.

None of the characters are likable either. Anna gets into the mess in the first place because she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. She’s in a really bad mood for the whole film. I forgot why, but as a result she constantly gets upset with her boyfriend and even runs out during their dinner for no acceptable reason. She wouldn’t even let the guy defend himself. Then, once she’s told that she is dead, Anna makes all of the wrong decisions. She could have escaped by jumping out the window and she even had a chance to stab Eliot. There were so many moves that she could have made, but instead she decided to just start believing him. Also, shouldn’t it be obvious to her that she is alive if she can throw things around and make a mess of the room to the point where Eliot noticed? Common sense guys…..it’s time to use it!

Paul isn’t much better. He makes a little more of an effort for the two of them to be together, but ultimately he turns into a bad character. He doesn’t make a terribly good effort to find Anna once he finds out that she may be alive. Instead, he even backhands a kid and is taken away. Then, he is very easily bumped off after he falls for Eliot’s trap. Seriously, he played all of his cards wrong. Naturally, I didn’t like ELiot either. He’s just another deranged mass murderer that tries to be deep and insightful, but it just full of hot air. The kid is a terrible character either as he turns into a psychotic murderer without a whole lot of convincing. He was just a bad kid from the start.

Aside from the terrible ending where the murderers are going to just claim more and more victims, the film falls into a lot of other holes as well. We have animal violence, as a kid murders a bird and we also have unnecessary fan service with the generic shower scene popping back up. The film never even tried to be classy. From the start you could tell that this was going to be a bad film, you just couldn’t guess just how bad it would be. A lot of times, the film didn’t even know what was going on.

Anna was apparently sick with something since she got a nosebleed at one point. I suppose this is meant to account for why she was in a bad mood, but it’s not explained at all and isn’t a really good reason either. The lights all going out in the school is another random moment that makes no sense. The kid couldn’t move fast enough to pull that trick out and it’s a crazy supernatural moment that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another way for the film to try and give Anna some extra suspense.

Overall, After.Life is a terrible film and it’s the latest entrant into the 0 stars category. It’s just hard to get much worse than this film as it’s a major chore to watch and has a really bad ending. A bad ending can hurt a good film, imagine how much it hurts a bad one. I don’t think people want to see a mass murderer get away scot-free and strengthen his position. It’s just in bad taste. I highly recommend avoiding this film as much as possible. There’s nothing redeemable about the film, whether it be the characters, messages, or writing. You’re better off watching just about anything else. After all, if the film’s poster can spoil the answer to the film’s question before you even start watching it….then is there even a point to this whole thing? I don’t think so.

Overall 0/10

Cat People Review

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It’s time for an old school horror film. The Cat People is one of those films that makes you shake your head. It was pretty good for about 90% of the film and then drops off the mountain in the closing scenes. It was so close to being a good film, but just couldn’t hang in there. It’s like they say about entering competitions. It’s not about how you start, but how you finish. It may not seem fair, but a bad 10 minutes can completely nullify a good 60 minutes. Negative moments have always had more influence than positive ones because they will just stick in your mind. That’s basically what happens here.

The film follows a lady named Irena who is approached by the flirty Oliver. Clearly this guy isn’t shallow despite going on the offensive immediately so Irena drops what she is doing and the two of them become a couple. The one problem is that Irena comes from the clan of Cat People and she is cursed with the ability to turn into a cat whenever things get past the friend zone. Oliver doesn’t buy this and slowly gets fed up with Irena. He decides to quickly get a new girlfriend before actually breaking up with Irena. He then lets her know about this after she goes through the long ordeal or curing herself. Well…it’s time for revenge!

Irena is actually a pretty good main character. She successfully fights off her impulse to destroy Alice the whole time and also prevents herself from going into the cage where the Black Panther was. She was doing it all to cure herself and become a normal person, but being back stabbed at the last second was the final straw. It was a shame, but now this forced Irena’s hand. The final bit gets rather crazy as she basically destroys herself and then the cat that she freed also dies as it is run over. The ending will just have you shaking your head. What happened to the writers?

Well, the film definitely makes Oliver as unlikable as possible. I wonder if it was intentional though because it doesn’t necessarily feel like it was, but you can’t really tell sometimes. Well, the intent doesn’t matter so much in the end though. You’re rooting for Irena to get him, but this just doesn’t happen. Oliver is too crafty and Irena is too nice for her own good. Alice certainly isn’t any good either. She goes after Oliver the whole time despite knowing that he is taken. She essentially tempts him into making the wrong call. He’s just as guilty as she is, but it doesn’t make either one of them likable in the slightest.

Judd is the psychologist who tries to cure Irena. At first he was a likable enough character. He knew what he was doing and wasn’t handling the situation all that badly. Unfortunately, he decides to go mad with power after that and decided that he wanted Irena all to himself. It doesn’t end well for him, but the whole plot was rather pointless and certainly didn’t need to be included. It’s just another moment where you have to wonder where the film was going with this.

The scenes with Irena as a cat were cool. She did a good job of really putting the fear into Alice and again, I have to give her credit for not finishing the job. Instead, she merely settled for intimidating Alice and subtly hinting what would happen if she didn’t stop playing games with Oliver. Alice ignored this in the end, but Irena still didn’t destroy her. By the end, Irena was certainly willing to, but chose to simply end it all instead of going for revenge. It’s a decision that is incredibly rare for this kind of film.

Unfortunately, we had to have that animal violence towards the end. Having the cat get run over was just pointless and I don’t think that Irena needed to have such a sad ending. Couldn’t the film have just had her go back to her village or just roamed the forest on her own? It would have been more satisfying and not quite as grim. The whole rushed plot with Judd also didn’t do any wonders for the movie. Such a shame, if the film had run its course without any of that nonsense, it could have definitely gotten a 6 or maybe even a 7 depending on what the alternate ending would have been. Still, what ifs and could haves don’t ultimately mean much. Also, another scene of animal violence had a bird die either of shock or Irena’s hands were too much like a cat’s and pricked the bird. Either way, it was another sad moment which really stopped the film’s chances of being good.

While this is sort of a creature feature film, it’s played more seriously than titles like Creature From The Black Lagoon and the old Showa Godzilla films. I think it did try its best to be a horror film. The scene where Irena stalks Alice through the shadows and Irena barely makes it to the Bus Stop is definitely a horror moment. The music cuts away and it gets eerily quiet as she slowly starts to run instead of walk. There’s a lot of tension in the air and the scene was definitely handled well. It was a fun moment and again, I thought that Alice was going to die there. The whole film’s approach would have been different had that occurred as Irena would have likely just taken everyone out. Of course, then it’d just be a generic slasher film and it probably would have been even worse.

Overall, The Cat People is a film that had promise and handled itself pretty well for a while, but then it fell down. It’s still a lot more classy than most other horror titles. Unfortunately, the film simply couldn’t keep it up and Oliver really did his best to put himself in a bad position. The ending really prevents me from recommending this film and you should probably just watch an old Scooby Doo film instead. Those films typically have good endings and you’ll still get your share of scares in the meantime. You won’t have to think about lost possibilities either or wonder why Oliver got to have a happy ending despite being such a mean character the whole time. Also, why did a lady from the lost village show up if she was just going to vanish and never appear again? She was definitely real since everyone saw her. Maybe she traveled all the way to the big city just to mock Irena. I guess I wouldn’t put it past her.

Overall 3/10

Bass vs Ultron

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Suggested by Blake Ultron is one of the tougher Marvel villains around, but he is out of his league against Bass. Bass has the Darkness Overload, which is a blast that could destroy Ultron in a single blow. We also can’t forget the vast difference in their respective speed levels either. Ultron will have a very difficult time keeping up with Bass for even a short while. He’ll eventually be overwhelmed and his own impressive regenerative abilities will not be enough to keep him in the fight. Bass wins.

Rhino vs Rhydon

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Rhyperior
Suggested by JHG The Rhino is a fairly strong Spider-Man villain, but he won’t be able to keep up with Rhydon. Rhydon was already strong enough when he just had two forms, but Rhyperior was eventually discovered and that gives this Pokemon another boost through the ranks. Physically, Rhino could possibly have the slight edge here, but he has no way to deal with the onslaught of projectiles that Rhydon has at his disposal. The blasts would chip away at the Rhino’s health until he’d eventually fall. Rhydon wins.

Hiei vs Hulk

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hiei
HulkSmash
Suggested by Random This is a slam dunk win for Hiei. The Hulk is incredibly strong and his durability should not be questioned either. However, he is not very fast while Hiei is known for his high levels of speed. His sword can absolutely pierce through the Hulk and his Dragon of Darkness Flame attack would deal a lot of damage as well. The Hulk’s regenerative abilities will prolong the fight to an extent, but it will only buy him some time. The Hulk still has no way of injuring Hiei and that will present him with a fatal problem. Hiei wins.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Review

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It’s time to check out the Halloween special for Charlie Brown. Slowly, but surely I’m closing in on the rest of the Peanut specials. They certainly came out with quite a lot of them though so it’ll be a while before they are all complete. This one is pretty good and I’d say that it is one of the better specials even if it can’t quite keep up with Thanksgiving or the Christmas special. Halloween never could keep up with those two holidays in general though, despite what Teen Titans Go would have you believe.

Linus believes that the great Pumpkin will visit his patch if he waits all night and believes. Sally decides to wait with him although she ultimately regrets it. Meanwhile, Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the other characters all decide to go trick or treating. It’s safe to say that Charlie’s group has the better time, even if things don’t go well for Charlie Brown. Lets face it, things never go well for Charlie. Luck is not on his side and getting rocks instead of candy must be pretty insulting. A third plot is about Snoopy taking on enemy fighters in his imagination. That Dog sure can fly!

You can tell that this is one of the older specials since some characters act a little differently than usual. For example, Charlie and Linus aren’t really close friends in this one. They hang out, but Charlie quickly attacks Linus verbally when he is talking to Sally since Charlie doesn’t trust the guy. Linus also doesn’t seem quite as smart since he has apparently been waiting in the patch every year for a while now and never saw the Great Pumpkin. I guess he made a little slip every year which caused him to still think that it was real, like doubting for a moment. Still, it is quite sad for him.

As for Charlie, his costume was pretty bad. I’m sure that he would have at least gotten some candy if he hadn’t made his costume a broken ghost. Just find a new bed sheet and cut in two holes, it’s not exactly rocket science! Charlie takes it all in stride though and actually doesn’t spend a lot of time complaining about how bad things are for him. Maybe this was before he got really jaded with humanity. Charlie’s plot was more fun than Linus’ even if it was shorter.

Snoopy’s plot is fairly standard as we’ve seen these Red Baron fights a few times before. I thought it was all right and the scene didn’t last too long so it doesn’t drag. I preferred Snoopy’s plot in the Thanksgiving special as he made himself a feast, but eating such a large meal for every holiday is a good way to put on the pounds and Snoopy has to stay fit.

The animation and soundtrack are roughly the same as always. The style works well enough for the Peanut specials and it isn’t that bad. Most of the alternatives would be better, but it is what it is. The soundtrack isn’t particularly memorable, but these specials are more about the dialogue than anything else. The writing is good so I have no complaints there. The special is also pretty short like the others as it is less than half an hour long. You’ll be breezing through this one.

Overall, It’s the Great Pumpkin is on the better half of most Charlie Brown specials. That being said, there’s no real reason to rewatch it when you could revisit the Thanksgiving or Christmas specials. It’s a fun enough story, but experiencing it once will probably be enough. I definitely do recommend it if you haven’t seen this special yet. On my quest to watch them all, I’ll eventually be seeing the Election Day special. Once that happens, I’m confident that it will beat this one and maybe even the Thanksgiving one as it soars up to the top of the ranks. It’s just hard to picture the Election Day one not being awesome. It’s such a cool concept for Charlie and the gang.

Overall 7/10

Library Wars Love & War

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The premise for this series is certainly very unique. Who ever thought that we’d see a series about an army of librarians who have to defend their books with guns? It’s off to a good start so far and I’m 4 volumes in. If it can keep it up, then this will probably end up being one of the best Shojo titles. I’ll have a review for the series up when I finish it.

Overall 7/10

Doctor Strange Review

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All right, I got to see the latest big Marvel film! As we inch closer to the long awaited Infinity War, it makes sense to bring in a heavy hitter like Doctor Strange. He will certainly come in handy for the big fights since he is already one of the stronger members on the team. Considering that he has only just begun to learn the mystical arts, he’ll only get stronger from here. This is definitely a solid film and ranks pretty well compared to the other MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) films. I’ll have a list of them from best to worst below.

All right, lets dig into the plot! Doctor Strange was a very successful surgeon. He may have even been the world’s greatest. Unfortunately, he gets into a car crash and his hands are severely damaged. To bring them back to working condition, he heads to the mountains to learn from The Ancient One, who healed a patient in a similar condition. It turns out that she used magical abilities and now Strange can learn these as well. The catch is that Strange will now find himself in the middle of a war between light and dark. Can he help defend the universe or will Strange return to his normal life?

Even before we get to Strange actually becoming adept at using magic and fighting off the villains, the film is pretty fun. I liked Strange quite a lot back in his confident days. You see how he isn’t very heroic as he doesn’t help those who may not make it through the day. Strange was in it for the publicity, but at least he was still helping people. He did it for the wrong reasons, but it could be much worse. I was a little surprised at just how rich he was, but surgeons do make quite a lot of money and if you’re the world’s best..then it makes sense that you’d be rich. I’d call this part the prologue and it’s fairly short. The scenes all go by very quickly and maybe that’s part of why it was fun. It doesn’t drag on, but still lasts long enough for you to get a general feel for how the situation was for Strange and his colleagues.

The action scenes after that certainly live up to the hype. Strange and the other magicians all fight using more of a Green Lantern style than Harry Potter. They use magic to create energy weapons to fight with and can also alter the landscape around them during battle. Magic seems to be able to amp up their physical abilities like in Psyren as well since we see Strange jump long distances and land without injury. His super cape also allows him to fly. This is definitely how I can picture some of the Green Lanterns battling when sparring with each other. Strange’s magic is limited only by his imagination so he can come up with a lot of good weapons.

Since Strange is a genius, he is also able to learn the spells at a rapid pace. He even becomes adept at time spells, which is very handy in a fight. Sure, it can mess with the time stream, but it’s still worth using since it can help the heroes out when they’re in a pinch. With the abilities he showed here, I’d put Dr. Strange ahead of all the Avengers in a fight except for possibly Vision, Thor, and Hulk. Strange’s one weakness seems to be that he’s rather slow..the curse of all spellcasters. He can fly, which helps to make up for that and he can bring his spells up a lot faster than good ole Harry Potter, but it will still be tough to do in time against a speedster. For the Hulk, the problem is that most of his spells probably wouldn’t do much damage to him at the moment. Considering that Strange still has room to improve while the others do not, the tables could turn very quickly. As it is, I consider him to be pretty close to the others. Ms. Marvel should claim 1st easily if she’s handled accurately though.

As I mentioned earlier, Doctor Strange is a great character and the best one in the film. He is certainly charismatic and will remind you of Iron Man. With Iron Man getting mellowed out in his old age, Dr. Strange could become the most charismatic in the MCU. We’ll just have to see if being sorcerer supreme also makes him “wiser” and he loses some of that fiery spirit. Hopefully not! The Ancient One is another one of the big characters here. She’s the mentor figure in the film…and well….we’ll see if you know what that means for her. Regardless, she’s a good character but tends to be a little too cryptic. A few more direct words would have helped clear up some of the major misunderstandings. Perhaps she was just too full of herself or simply thought that she could handle whatever troubles arised. She was fairly tough and was shown to be a more capable fighter than the others. At this point, she is probably still a little stronger than Strange as well. It’s just always going to be tough when you’re outnumbered.

I can’t say that I liked Mordo, but granted, I knew where things were going thanks to the comic. I didn’t expect the road to be traveled so quickly, but here we are. His magic boots are definitely a handy tool to have. I’ll take the cloak personally since it gives auto defense as well, but the boots help Mordo be an aerial fighter. He doesn’t get a whole lot of action here so that’ll probably be more in the sequel. It’s hard to take him seriously as a threat, but a good power up can go a long way.

Christine is the main heroine of the film. As always, I thought that the romance was rather weak and unnecessary here. She wasn’t a bad character though and while she didn’t take the supernatural aspects particularly well, few characters do. Usually, a character only takes it well if it’s a comic relief moment and that wasn’t going to happen here. Christine does give us one of the jump scares in the film so that was neat. I’m hoping that she gets some powers for the sequel since that would help her out quite a bit.

Kaecilius is the main villain and he won’t be the next Loki. He’s essentially Malekith 2.0 or any other average baddy. He wants to destroy the world. That’s basically his only goal. I think one of the reasons why he doesn’t work so well is that this guy has been a disciple of the magical arts for ages. He’s one of the strongest warriors and yet….Doctor Strange is able to give him a good fight and overpower the guy in his very first skirmish. Despite everything that happens afterwards, it sort of destroys the hype around the guy. He’s not a bad villain though and I like him more than Mordo, but there just isn’t much to him.

Now, Dormammu is a solid villain. I didn’t really like the design that he got in this film, but the personality is still intact. When Strange makes his move, Dormammu does his best to keep doing what he does best. His attacks are definitely cool looking and his power is certainly treated with a lot of respect. I don’t see him getting a large role anytime soon as a result, but it was certainly nice to see him. There are some other nice tributes here like the Staff of the Living Tribunal, which pops up. That guy is an interesting figure in the comics as he is supposed to be one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. I always took that with a grain of salt and believe that the staff proves this. It wasn’t able to break a simple conjured staff. I do want it to appear more in the sequels though as it leads to a lot of questions. Is the Living Tribunal dead? I wouldn’t be surprised, but seeing him and the other big Marvel abstracts on the big screen would be pretty awesome.

It almost goes without saying, but the effects are really good. The scene where Strange is launched into the magic world and the colors start going crazy is certainly the best example of this. I definitely enjoy seeing visuals like that and there is a lot to take in. All of the fight scenes are visually a blast as well. I am confident that the Dr. Strange films will be able to keep this up and it’ll be cool to see it transfer over to Strange’s other films as well. He’ll certainly be returning sooner than later. I can’t really say that the soundtrack was all that memorable though. I forgot most of the tunes right away, but they fit the scenes well enough.

There are two after credit scenes in this film so make sure that you stick around for them. They are the best scenes that we have gotten in quite a while and the first one in particular is a lot of fun. It definitely has a lot of promise and while it wasn’t the Spider-Man, Thor, Dr. Strange, and Ms. Marvel teaming up against Thanos cliffhanger that you may have been expecting, we can be confident that this will be happening soon. The second scene is a little more grim and you’ll definitely feel bad for person X because of what person Y does to him, but it also helps lead into a film and tries to legitimize a threat. Both are important and aren’t filler, which is huge since that has been my problem with some of the other scenes from past films.

Time for that MCU list! There aren’t as many films as in the Godzilla franchise so I won’t be using as many tiers since it would just spread them out needlessly. There will only be three tiers instead. The films that are easily a cut above the rest, the films which are all more or less at around the same level, and the ones that are easily weaker. Lets go!

S. Avengers, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: The Winter Soldier
A. Doctor Strange, Thor 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man 2, Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 3, Hulk
C Captain America, Ant Man

You should account for recency bias here as the theater effect typically makes a film stand out even more than usual for a few months. That being said, I do think Doctor Strange is a solid enough film to keep this spot for a while and if anything it just speaks to how Marvel has been able to keep up the quality and even improve upon it.

There are certainly a lot of other things to talk about here, but I’m trying to keep this movie completely spoiler free so I’ll have to let them go for now. One thing that I will say is that Strange has a good point about how warnings for spells should be written before the spells. One of the “crimes” that he commits isn’t even that bad if you ask me. It’s always a moral dilemma about how you should wield this fundamental force of nature and it’s too big to tackle in a paragraph, but if you can use it, then you probably should. I think it may play a big role in Infinity War if the Avengers aren’t quite ready for Thanos in the initial confrontation. You can’t even call it a Deux Ex Machina since it is already established and isn’t as easy as snapping your fingers. It would likely only be able to be used once so they wouldn’t have infinite shots. That’s enough hints on that though.

Oh yeah, I should probably just put this out there. Doctor Strange could easily beat Harry Potter and Voldemort in a fight. It’s not even close. In his very first fight with absolutely no prep time, Doctor Strange was able to take on 3 skilled opponents at once. (Probably the best fight scene in the film) Harry wouldn’t have been able to take any of them on. Being able to use spells while also fighting is a skill that will let Strange beat most other opponents. That’s another reason why I liked Strange. He didn’t want to join in the war, but when the fight came to him, he made sure to finish the job and take out his opponents. His only real misstep was snapping at Christine and just watching as the Ancient One was triple teamed. Seriously, he probably should have stepped in or tried to do anything. That would have been very helpful. I’m sure that he won’t panic like that again though and he’s still a rookie (Relatively. Astral Projections eliminate the need for sleep so he’s gotten to improve at triple speeds or more) As far as protagonists for Marvel go, Doctor Strange is probably the most likable one, with Tony Stark being second and maybe Cap being third. Cap’s gotten more likable over the last few films.

Overall, Doctor Strange is another solid installment to the MCU. I’d consider it to be one of the best Marvel films that they’ve put out. It works really well as a stand alone, which is rare for a film this late in the game. It’ll make Strange’s appearances in other films all the more special as he’ll already have had his character development and it will make the film feel more like a crossover. This film balances the more comical aspects with the serious ones pretty well and I’d say that it did a much better job of it here than Age of Ultron. The latter went a little too far with the comedy at some points. The moving buildings angle made for some really fun fights and this is what Thor: The Dark World should have done with Malekith. The fights in Doctor Strange were gimmicky, but still had a lot of action and you couldn’t say that they weren’t fighting. On the contrary, someone was always on the offensive in the fights and it just meant that they had to concentrate on multiple things at once. Magic is such a great ability to have. I certainly recommend checking this film out and then we’ll see if Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Spider-Man can hold their own against this film. It’s certainly going to be tricky, They’re dooooooomed but if there’s anything we’ve learned about comic book films, it’s that you can’t count them out. After all, Civil War actually made Black Panther a likable character and was able to get me on Team Iron Man for once. Both of those were things that I didn’t think were possible.

Overall 8/10