Dr. Strange

I have been looking forward to this one since it was announced, Dr. Strange is a character who I wouldn't have thought they would bring to the big screen being sort of a cerebral hero who spends more time fighting concepts and threats to the fabric of reality than an enemy who you can defeat by hitting them in the face. So I wanted to see how they would handle that, plus the trailers were pretty trippy.

Turns out they did it pretty well! Now obviously there are major differences from the comic book version, that is fine, I have never been a purist and don't care about that very much at all. The origin is the same though, Dr. Steven Strange is a brilliant but arrogant surgeon who gets his hands ruined in a car accident(Don't drive distracted folks) and in his quest to heal them comes across a society of sorcerers who protect reality. This time the threat is the Dread Dormammu, basically a demonic demi-god that wants to bring all worlds into his Dark Dimension, which would be bad.

I had fun, Benedict Cumberbatch nails the role as Strange, obviously him playing an arrogant asshole genius is nothing new, but seeing him mature and learn lessons was cool to see and very believable. By the end his transformation into the hero is a complete narrative that felt natural.

It looks cool as hell, the favored type of combat between sorcerers seems to be either "Kung fu with conjured weapons" or "Turn the entire world into a kaleidoscope and make the enemy get crushed by a third of the building they are standing on, or fall into space" There is not really a middle ground there. But either way it looks sweet. Dormammu is impressive too, in the comic he is a giant dude with a flaming head, and that is... not the case here but he still sort of resembles that anyway, an impressive accomplishment I thought.

At it's core thought the movie is fun, despite part of Strange's journey being to accept that the universe is not how he initially thought it was, and having to learn personal lessons, the film does not get up its own ass with philosophy and knows when to laugh too, it walks the line of acknowledging it's own ridiculousness without turning into parody, the last time I enjoyed a Marvel movie this much was Guardians of the Galaxy, and for similar reasons.

Marvel studios continues to dominate DC in the film-making department basically due to that philosophy, while DC really wants to make us care about the ideas put into the films, they forget that their subjects are people like an emotionally stunted billionaire turned crime fighter or an alien who has the power of basically being the best. You can't just ignore that your subject matter is silly by making everyone talk in a growly voice and putting a dark filter over all the cameras. Embrace the silliness of your concept and trust your audience will choose to like it anyway.
Suicide Squad approached this a bit, but was focus grouped nearly into oblivion, no I still say it is the best of the DC films, but it has a way to go before it reaches the least of the Marvel movies.

Anyway, go see Dr. Strange, it doesn't waste your time, looks great, and is fun. What other reason to you need?

Also the mid credits sequence is cool, all I know is if you put Benedict Cumberbatch as Strange and Tom Hiddleston as Loki in the same movie I will go see it on opening day.