Don’t count the plot holes. Don’t think too much about how the bad guys capacity to fight good wizards seems very situational. Nigh on impossible not to wince at the racist cliches of oriental-exoticness juxtaposed with only one Asian actor. Ignore some slightly stilted dialogue. Don’t concern yourself with Cumberbatch’s odd American accent (is it actually odd or is that it just doesn’t sound like him?) Don’t worry about the new age nonsense – you knew the movie was about magic when you walked in there.
The story isn’t complex. The acting is fine. The humour is less sharp than Iron Man and less frequent than Ant-Man. But…
It does all really work. The fights are tense and the magic is spectacular. The effects are both gratuitous and absolutely necessary. The visuals keep playing with wild symmetries and a psychedelic aesthetic that feels like 2016 technology applied to 1966 imaginings.
It really is everything you might want out of a Doctor Strange movie. Fights occur on astral planes, in Inception-like mirror dimensions, and in invading hell-dimensions. Everything is pompous but in a way that commits to pomposity knowing that this is the right way to achieve the higher sense of being in which ‘fun’ will be achieved.
I really, really liked it.
[To be honest, I’d watch it just for all the reflection symmetry]
Camestros Felapton 
4 responses to “Review: Doctor Strange – trippy woo-woo fun”
So basically if you just ignore like a good 80 percent of what’s going on its not that bad? Good to know. I want to see it, its just the way its been handled, I’ll just wait until DVD.
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I think the flaws will be more obvious on the small screen.
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I got round to seeing this. Plenty of flaws, but plenty of fun to drown most of them out. The inception-esque visuals were probably my favourite parts, although the sentient cape was also good value.
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The cape was fun
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