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Doctor Strange Review Thread

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guek

Banned
Yeah? I definitely feel like MC paints a more accurate picture of a movie's quality.
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Well that depends on what it is you're trying to measure. If you value your time enough to the point that the only movies you want to spend time with are those of the utmost quality, metrics like the MC score or RT avg are definitely more useful. But not everyone holds time spent on movies in such high regard, likely including critics whose opinions you're trusting. Critics have to watch tons of middling to shit movies and most try to find something enjoyable about them, especially if they're giving it a score beyond the binary recommendation or absence of recommendation. Some times, you just want to know what's the likelihood of generally enjoying a movie. There's also the advantage of lower RT percentages that may indicate a greater likelihood of polarizing opinions. Consider how often you've discovered you enjoyed a movie with a lower RT%. MC is also curated to a much smaller pool of reviews, usually between 40-50 as opposed to 3x that number on RT. While those maybe more trusted reviewers, even the top critics portion of RT has a wider range of contributions than MC. With a wider range, the less likelihood the score is skewed one way or another.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
I am actually going to DC for a long weekend (from NJ, me and my wife did the same thing about a year ago and loved DC so much and only saw about 30% of what we wanted, so we went back).

Tonight I realized this may in fact be the first Marvel movie I do not see on opening weekend, and it is my most anticipated. My wife amazingly said "well if we really have to, we can see it in DC."

So even though it seems like a waste of a weekend getaway, I plan on doing just that. Maybe it will even be in iMax. Shit, I should look that up now huh?
 
Yeah? I definitely feel like MC paints a more accurate picture of a movie's quality.

People misunderstanding RT% and the culture around it on GAF is a pet peeve of mine, but the actual RT average score is most often pretty close to the MC score, isn't it? It's just that many users tend to overlook the latter.

With that said, one has to consider that even absolute masterpieces can't get a 10/10 average due to the nature of aggregate sites, which skewes the scale a bit (no matter how good, no piece of art will ever evoke the same amount of enthusiasm from a broad range of people). On RT a small number of undisputed classics hover around 9-9.5/10 at best, and even those would likely be scored lower if they had 3-4x the amount of reviews, like any modern release does. Meanwhile, even universally praised modern releases cap at 9/10 in the majority of cases. Because of this, i feel like i can easily add 0,5-1 point most of the time to get a more accurate representation of what i would personally score it out of 10 (if i were to do that), provided that i agree with the general sentiment about the film in the first place.
 

Litan

Member
Consensus is up:

Doctor Strange artfully balances its outré source material against the blockbuster constraints of the MCU, delivering a thoroughly entertaining superhero origin story in the bargain.
 

-griffy-

Banned
Yeah? I definitely feel like MC paints a more accurate picture of a movie's quality.
Not really, if you actually know what the RT percent is. Which I swear is repeated in every single RT thread.

The RT percent is the percentage of critics that gave the movie a favorable review. It is not saying the quality of the movie is 98/100, it is saying 98 percent of critics said the movie was at least a 6/10 or better. The average rating tells you what the aggregate score is, which is 7.3/10 for Doctor Strange, and right in line with Metacritic's 74.
 

Timu

Member
Consensus is up:

Doctor Strange artfully balances its outré source material against the blockbuster constraints of the MCU, delivering a thoroughly entertaining superhero origin story in the bargain.
Yep, this movie is yet another big hit for Marvel!!!
 

caliph95

Member
Not really, if you actually know what the RT percent is. Which I swear is repeated in every single RT thread.

The RT percent is the percentage of critics that gave the movie a favorable review. It is not saying the quality of the movie is 98/100, it is saying 98 percent of critics said the movie was at least a 6/10 or better. The average rating tells you what the aggregate score is, which is 7.3/10 for Doctor Strange, and right in line with Metacritic's 74.
You explain it and people still someone will make an inaccurate assumptions on rotten tomatoes in the internet. Why is RT so misunderstood.
 

Staf

Member
Looking forward to seeing this, looks great like usual from Marvel. Man, it's bumming me out how Marvel can make freaking Dr strange/Thor/Ant-man work yet WB/DC can't even fucking nail my boy Superman.
 
Went to see this last night and overall I thought it was great, though I felt the story and some of the characters a bit mishandled. I find it really hard to rank them as I pretty much love them all, but trying to be objective my ranking would probably be something like this:

Top Tier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Iron Man
Captain America: Civil War
The Avengers

Great Tier

Doctor Strange
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger
Ant Man
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Iron Man 3
Thor: The Dark World
Iron Man 2

Good/Reasonable Tier

The Incredible Hulk

The only movie I don't really love is The Incredible Hulk, simply because it doesn't quite have the charm the other movies have. Also I would need to watch Doctor Strange again to make a better assessment.
 
Looking forward to seeing this, looks great like usual from Marvel. Man, it's bumming me out how Marvel can make freaking Dr strange/Thor/Ant-man work yet WB/DC can't even fucking nail my boy Superman.

It is really disappointing that their movies haven't been great. I quite liked Man of Steel, but still felt it was a bad movie to start the DC continuity with. Cavill just didn't seem the right choice.

Now they are just running properties into the ground. They seem obsessed with rushing towards Justice League as if it is guaranteed to make bank, when they should realise that growing their continuity slowly with individual movies can be equally lucrative.

Also, they need to get rid of Zack Snyder. He can make a nice looking movie, but there is always something lacking in his movies, something which is really well highlighted in this video.
 

AMUSIX

Member
Looking forward to seeing this, looks great like usual from Marvel. Man, it's bumming me out how Marvel can make freaking Dr strange/Thor/Ant-man work yet WB/DC can't even fucking nail my boy Superman.

The show is cheesy as hell, but after seeing how Superman was treated in the first two episodes of this season of Supergirl, I long to have that on the big screen.


Really looking forward to Dr. Strange, and, for those who have seen it, how does it compare directly to Iron Man? From what I've gathered about the film and the story, that's the best parallel in the MCU.



Also, I really don't get the "oh, no, another origin story" sentiment. The MCU has had 13 films, only Iron Man, Captain America, and Ant-Man have been origin stories. With Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel, I'd say 5 origin stories is not bad for 22 films.
 

Finaika

Member
The show is cheesy as hell, but after seeing how Superman was treated in the first two episodes of this season of Supergirl, I long to have that on the big screen.


Really looking forward to Dr. Strange, and, for those who have seen it, how does it compare directly to Iron Man? From what I've gathered about the film and the story, that's the best parallel in the MCU.



Also, I really don't get the "oh, no, another origin story" sentiment. The MCU has had 13 films, only Iron Man, Captain America, and Ant-Man have been origin stories. With Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel, I'd say 5 origin stories is not bad for 22 films.

Iron Man's better.
 
The show is cheesy as hell, but after seeing how Superman was treated in the first two episodes of this season of Supergirl, I long to have that on the big screen.


Really looking forward to Dr. Strange, and, for those who have seen it, how does it compare directly to Iron Man? From what I've gathered about the film and the story, that's the best parallel in the MCU.



Also, I really don't get the "oh, no, another origin story" sentiment. The MCU has had 13 films, only Iron Man, Captain America, and Ant-Man have been origin stories. With Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel, I'd say 5 origin stories is not bad for 22 films.

I would say Doctor Strange is to Iron Man, what the Force Awakens is to A New Hope, wherein they follow the same general path, but looking more closely the movies are a bit more different than they initially appear.

With respect to the origin story, it is not so much that I think they have been over done, more that Doctor Strange doesn't do anything particularly different with it.

Big spoiler:

Considering how the time stone plays into the story, I would have liked them to have used it to subvert or play around the origin story structure. There could have been some creative ways of using it.
 
Went to see this last night and overall I thought it was great, though I felt the story and some of the characters a bit mishandled. I find it really hard to rank them as I pretty much love them all, but trying to be objective my ranking would probably be something like this:

Top Tier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Iron Man
Captain America: Civil War
The Avengers

Great Tier

Doctor Strange
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger
Ant Man
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Iron Man 3
Thor: The Dark World
Iron Man 2

Good/Reasonable Tier

The Incredible Hulk

The only movie I don't really love is The Incredible Hulk, simply because it doesn't quite have the charm the other movies have. Also I would need to watch Doctor Strange again to make a better assessment.

I like your list :)
 
Thanks :) , whilst I can objectively see some flaws in some of the movies, I still love them all (except Hulk which is merely good). Hell I even love The Dark World and Iron Man 2.

I think a lot of it revolves around characters. People LOVE Hemsworth as Thor, RDJ as Iron Man etc., even if the movies they're in are FAR from perfect, the characters are still endearing.

Then you have the DC films where people rail against Cavill, Eisenberg etc. and it becomes a lot harder to pass a mediocre film.
 
Another Doctor Strange film review for the pile;

As a standalone film, Doctor Strange continues the quality pattern of Marvel offerings, presenting a similar, almost clone-like structure to its predecessors, adopting both the good and bad - that at this point has become a signature - but with some mind blowing visual effects up its sleeves and a lead performance from Benedict Cumberbatch that once again truly encapsulates his Marvel comics character.

If you’re a fan of superhero films in general, then you’ll definitely want to check out Doctor Strange, but if the genre hasn’t drawn you in thus far, then Doctor Strange will do little to change that for you.

Crash Landed - 3/5

There's also a Doctor Strange *spoiler free* video review for those who aren't too fond of the ole reading.
 

Wurst

Member
Wow, I loved this movie! Great cast, weak villain and mindblowing visuals.

The mechanic to beat the villain was smart.

I left incredibly satisfied. I want to See more of this!

Edit: oops, thought this was the spoiler thread
 

Rooster12

Member
Man, it's bumming me out how Marvel can make freaking Dr strange/Thor/Ant-man work yet WB/DC can't even fucking nail my boy Superman.


WB knows nothing about DC. The movies are made by people who knows nothing about the DC universe, which isn't their fault. Snyder was hired by WB, it's not his fault that he really doesn't give a shit about the DCU as a whole. They just care about money.
 

Litan

Member
WB knows nothing about DC. The movies are made by people who knows nothing about the DC universe, which isn't their fault. Snyder was hired by WB, it's not his fault that he really doesn't give a shit about the DCU as a whole. They just care about money.
Hope Geoff Johns turns things around. I want good DCEU movies. Lots of great characters and a shit-load of awesome stuff to work with in a fully realized universe.
 

Oersted

Member
What I always find interesting is that reviewers refer to Marvel movies rarely as movies, but mostly as Marvel movies.

"For a Marvel movie", "...with the Marvel formula..." etc etc

Marvel movies are always seen in their own context, own universe if you will.

Just look at the Rotten consensus:

"Critic Consensus: Doctor Strange artfully balances its outré source material against the blockbuster constraints of the MCU, delivering a thoroughly entertaining superhero origin story in the bargain."

Its... interesting.
 

Not

Banned
What I always find interesting is that reviewers refer to Marvel movies rarely as movies, but mostly as Marvel movies.

"For a Marvel movie", "...with the Marvel formula..." etc etc

Marvel movies are always seen in their own context, own universe if you will.

Just look at the Rotten consensus:

"Critic Consensus: Doctor Strange artfully balances its outré source material against the blockbuster constraints of the MCU, delivering a thoroughly entertaining superhero origin story in the bargain."

Its... interesting.

Yeah the "judging the quality of a movie in a vacuum" debate rages on
 

Henkka

Banned
What I always find interesting is that reviewers refer to Marvel movies rarely as movies, but mostly as Marvel movies.

"For a Marvel movie", "...with the Marvel formula..." etc etc

Marvel movies are always seen in their own context, own universe if you will.

Just look at the Rotten consensus:

"Critic Consensus: Doctor Strange artfully balances its outré source material against the blockbuster constraints of the MCU, delivering a thoroughly entertaining superhero origin story in the bargain."

Its... interesting.

From the perspective that reviews are basically purchasing advice for prospective buyers of movie tickets, it makes sense.

"If you liked those other movies, this is a good one of those"

That basically informs most people whether or not they should pay money to see it. Where these movies are on the overall spectrum of film is a better topic for an essay, not a single review imo

96% at 57 reviews tho daamn
 
WB knows nothing about DC. The movies are made by people who knows nothing about the DC universe, which isn't their fault. Snyder was hired by WB, it's not his fault that he really doesn't give a shit about the DCU as a whole. They just care about money.

Nah this is pretty silly as shit. The guy who made BvS clearly cared a lot with what he was doing with these characters. Considerable effort was made to filter them through some sort of bombastic Greek tragedy.

He just doesn't give a shit about the dcu that you or a lot of the fans want. And I understand why that annoys a lot of people don't get me wrong.

And lmao at the last sentence. Like Disney is making these movies out of the kindness of their hearts and respect for the art of comic books or some shit. This whole genre is a big cash grab.
 

Oersted

Member
Yeah the "judging the quality of a movie in a vacuum" debate rages on

Beyond being dismissive, is there anything you are trying to say?

I'm not asking for no context, I'm observing that for Marvel movies exists a much more specific context.

For normal movies they would simply tell me is the movie any good. For Marvel movies they mostly tell me if it is any good/bad for a Marvel movie.
 

Blader

Member
Nah this is pretty silly as shit. The guy who made BvS clearly cared a lot with what he was doing with these characters. Considerable effort was made to filter them through some sort of bombastic Greek tragedy.

He just doesn't give a shit about the dcu that you or a lot of the fans want. And I understand why that annoys a lot of people don't get me wrong.

And lmao at the last sentence. Like Disney is making these movies out of the kindness of their hearts and respect for the art of comic books or some shit. This whole genre is a big cash grab.

I don't think that's true, he says all the time that he's doing it for the fans, he approaches the material like a fan because he's a fan himself, etc. When BvS was getting piled on by critics, the defense that Snyder and co. started trotting out was that it's not for critics, it's for the fans (welp, fans hated it too).
 
Beyond being dismissive, is there anything you are trying to say?

I'm not asking for no context, I'm observing that for Marvel movies exists a much more specific context.

For normal movies they would simply tell me is the movie any good. For Marvel movies they mostly tell me if it is any good/bad for a Marvel movie.

I think thats due to the people who are going to watch Doctor Strange are those already ingrained within the MCU, having watched all the past ones etc. And if your someone who hasn't liked previous movies within the genre then it's unlikely this will do anything for you.
 

Litan

Member
Beyond being dismissive, is there anything you are trying to say?

I'm not asking for no context, I'm observing that for Marvel movies exists a much more specific context.

For normal movies they would simply tell me is the movie any good. For Marvel movies they mostly tell me if it is any good/bad for a Marvel movie.
All superhero movies seem to get compared when critics do their reviews. CW got a lot of comparisons to BvS and Suicide Squad got compared to Deadpool and GotG quite a bit.
 
So cutting through all the shit talking and all the ridiculous over analysing of review scores, basically Doctor Strange is a good movie, not really surprised, being a Marvel Studios movie and thats all I needed to know.

Been looking forward for this since it was announced, should be a blast to watch at the local IMAX.
 

Litan

Member
So cutting through all the shit talking and all the ridiculous over analysing of review scores, basically Doctor Strange is a good movie, not really surprised, being a Marvel Studios movie and thats all I needed to know.

Been looking forward for this since it was announced, should be a blast to watch at the local IMAX.
I was honestly expecting Thor level of quality after looking through Derrickson's past work, so to see it turn out so good is a pleasant surprise.
 
I don't think that's true, he says all the time that he's doing it for the fans, he approaches the material like a fan because he's a fan himself, etc. When BvS was getting piled on by critics, the defense that Snyder and co. started trotting out was that it's not for critics, it's for the fans (welp, fans hated it too).

I liked it tho 👀 lol. I don't see how that would make me any less of a Batman or superman fan than some other random guy who was irritated at Superman's personality in the film.

But I dunno that seems like they were just trying to save face with that statement, it's so hollow. It's really apparent the stuff in BvS is mostly what snyder wanted for the characters more than anything else. He is a fan for sure no doubt about it (because we really can't group them all together as a monolith that only likes things one way really), but also willing to put his own spin on things which causes such an uproar at the end of the day
 

Litan

Member
I liked it tho 👀 lol. I don't see how that would make me any less of a Batman or superman fan than some other random guy who was irritated at Superman's personality in the film.

But I dunno that seems like they were just trying to save face with that statement, it's so hollow. It's really apparent the stuff in BvS is mostly what snyder wanted for the characters more than anything else. He is a fan for sure no doubt about it (because we really can't group them all together as a monolith that only likes things one way really), but also willing to put his own spin on things which causes such an uproar at the end of the day
You keep framing BvS' reception as a result of him putting his own spin on things when that's not the case.

People are way more likely to accept a different take on something familiar if what you put out is of good or great quality. Look at Nolan's Batman. You still get a few bitching about how it's not a 'real' Batman story and blah blah blah, but the majority of comic fans will put them in the highest tier of CBM.
Raimi spiderman also gets a lot of the same complaints, as well as Singer's X-men.

BvS' reception is all on the director and the writers, not the audience.
 
You keep framing BvS' reception as a result of him putting his own spin on things when that's not the case.

People are way more likely to accept a different take on something familiar if what you put out is of good or great quality. Look at Nolan's Batman. You still get a few bitching about how it's not a 'real' Batman story and blah blah blah, but the majority of comic fans will put them in the highest tier of CBM.
Raimi spiderman also gets a lot of the same complaints, as well as Singer's X-men.

BvS' reception is all on the director and the writers, not the audience.

First off you gotta stop fabricating what I'm saying or misconstruing my posts all the time

And also where in that post am I saying that's the sole reason why it was disliked? A large portion of the negative fan response has been because of snyder's take on Batman and superman. Less so complaints about some of the strange editing choices or hole-riddled script. But sure that is also a reason why it was disliked too no doubt about it. I've never said it wasn't.

But you gotta be blind to not see how a large portion of online complaints revolve around "Snyder isn't a fan like I'M a fan. Why is superman not smiling, why is batman crazy!" Ad nauseum

Edit: bless up tho. This is a doctor strange thread and sorry for dragging out this argument y'all. Just posts like that one I quoted a few above irk the hell out of me
 

Cuburt

Member
Beyond being dismissive, is there anything you are trying to say?

I'm not asking for no context, I'm observing that for Marvel movies exists a much more specific context.

For normal movies they would simply tell me is the movie any good. For Marvel movies they mostly tell me if it is any good/bad for a Marvel movie.

To be fair, I think many films that are sequels/franchises have a line that says something like "fails to capture the charm of the original" or "takes what people liked about the original and improves upon it." Sometimes they even comment on the film in the context of the genre or that it's a remake or based on a book or whatever, as long as the context is relevant to the film.
 

ugoo18

Member
Well Dr Strange leap frogs The first Avengers into 2nd spot on my all time Marvel list behind Winter Soldier.

An almost perfect way of bringing mysticism into the MCU. Kaecillus is kind of meh though as a villain but certain things and individuals make up for that and lay the groundwork for potential greatness later on. At first I wasn't a fan of one particular change they made but by the post credits scene it actually worked quite nicely. A bit too much humour crow barred in for my liking. This movie is actually quite gorgeous at times. That specific sequence (Those who've seen it will probably guess the one I'm referring to) is just beautiful. Overall it's the most visually engaging MCU movie yet.

Overall 8/10, still waiting on a comic book movie to break that 8+ barrier lol. The Dark Knight still is the only one to achieve that with its 8.5 for me. Overall though as the MCU goes

Winter Soldier
Dr Strange
Avengers 1

Glad it turned out so well especially after the mediocrity and disappointment that was Civil War. This is my favourite Comic book movie this this year, jumped Deadpool for that spot lol.
 
Yeah? I definitely feel like MC paints a more accurate picture of a movie's quality.



1322.gif


Man, I can even hear Nicholas Cage saying it. He's a legend. Why does he not have a lifetime achievement award yet?
 

guek

Banned
Avg is up to 7.3

96% with 68 reviews

Strange is reviewing significantly better than I expected. I was anticipating a reception closer to Ant-Man.
 

Alienfan

Member
Fantastic visuals and a couple of good one liners. Other than that, terrible use of Mads, Dr Strange's development felt rushed and the story was very predictable with no pay off. Probably the most formulaic marvel film I've ever seen, it was good, but I'm genuinely surprised by the RT score - glad others loved it
 
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