When I started watching this, I became increasingly depressed as the film unspooled. (Well, it was on DVD, so it didn’t ‘unspool’, but you know what I mean.) And although the film finally did pick up a lot towards the end, it still leaves me depressed as to the state of the Lionsgate / Marvel animated movie thing.
At one point, plans were to release a new animated film every quarter. This slacked off almost immediately, and now the ‘preview’ (of sorts) on the Doctor Strange (should be Dr. Strange, actually) DVD promotes the next project, which is due for Summer 2008! And *that* film offers not one of Marvel’s zillions of established characters, but newly minted “children of the Avengers in the future” types presumably meant to ape DC’s Teen Titans. (Marvel does have a comic called “Young Avengers” now, with teenage versions of many of the classic Avenger characters, but this seems unrelated.) I don’t know, that just seems dumb to me.
The first of the four films released so far, Ultimate Avengers (a grittier alternate universe version of the classic Avengers), was pretty decent, with a great fight between the Hulk and the other Avengers. However, while it was a good start, it wasn’t a home run, and I was really hoping the follow-ups would continue to improve. Sadly, that first film remains the high mark so far. None of the follow-ups is bad, but neither are they great. Basically, I just found Ultimate Avengers 2 and Iron Man largely uninvolving. And as a Marvel Guy, I wanted them to be terrific.
Doctor Strange continues many of the series lamer qualities. The story is too somber (remember when comics were fun?!). The animation style is utterly bland. They seem entirely too concerned with making the hero ‘likeable’. Things move way too slowly in the early part of the film, as if they are terrified that the audience won’t ‘get’ stuff. I spent the first twenty or so minutes—and the film doesn’t last much longer than an hour—gritting my teeth and saying “Get on with it!” On a side note, Strange himself is introduced with a goatee beard when things start, and thus looks entirely too much like the Tony Stark (Iron Man) featured in all three of the previous animated movies.
I’m not a huge Dr. Strange fan, I must admit. I never really liked mixing magic and superheroes. (Uhm, except for Ghost Rider, I guess.) On the other hand, I do love what Bruce Timm and the crew over at Justice League Unlimited did with Dr. Fate, who they made a much spookier cat. That show even did a Defenders story, which is a Marvel team, using Fate to fill in for Strange, Solomon Grundy for the Hulk, and Aquaman for Namor. And it totally rocked. This…not so much.
In the comics (created by Stan Lee and the great Steve Ditko, a perfect artist for this character and his other dimension adventures),* Dr. Stephen Strange was a world-class surgeon and a world class dick. Karma paid his back with a car accident that messed his hands up. Destitute, he traveled the world, looking for some way to fix his mitts. Finally, he desperately ends up in Tibet, having heard rumors of a magical healer called the Old One.
[*Strange’s origin story appears in the gorgeous and essential hardcover reprint book Marvel Visionaries: Steve Ditko. Great stuff.]
Strange seeks out the Old Man’s remote temple in the mountains, but has trouble believing in magic. However, when the Old One is magically assaulted by his student Mordo, Strange intercedes, and becomes the Old One’s new and more authentic pupil. His destiny is to become the Master of the Mystic Arts, the Sorcerer Supreme.
The film basically follows this playbook, but they just can’t bring themselves to portray Strange as an irredeemable prick, presumably for fear that we will find him *gasp* unsympathetic. So we are given a backstory that *sigh* reveal’s his Secret Pain. Gaak. This really adds nothing to Strange’s ‘depth’, and again messes up his clean origin story. Sometimes the myths are fine as they are, and primary colors are better than more muted ones. This back story stuff in the movie is what really slows us down, and again, they hit every single bleeding note entirely too blatantly.
Things open nicely, with Mordo (at this point an unruly but so far faithful student of the Old One) leading a team of buff magic-users to fight a mystical monster. Despite the concealment spell of Wong, a fellow student—in the comics, Strange’s manservant—a bypassing Strange sees both them and the beastie. This is a nice touch, showing that Strange has some innate ability already.
Then we get to the ‘Strange is a dick’ part, followed hurredly with the ‘but he’s really just in pain!’ stuff. Meanwhile, it’s a later mystical event that causes the car crash that messes up Strange’s hand. Guess what, the story works better when he himself caused it, probably because he was out partying somewhere. This change again, I guess, was meant make him more ‘relatable’ and to ‘tie together’ with other elements of the origin story. Screenwriters love to ‘tie things together,’ despite the fact that this often wrecks some essential underpinning of the characters. See the Joker as the killer of Batman’s parents in Tim Burton’s Batman.
Once Strange finally goes on his quest, though, things start picking up. He goes for the normal ‘do this useless stuff / why am I doing this useless stuff’ phase until he finally learns how to get past himself. By then, Mordo has betrayed the Old One, and things proceed nicely from there.
One thing that doesn’t make sense is the timeframe. Strange seems to spend a fair amount of time in the isolated temple (although frankly he should spend years there learning his skills). However, when he returns to civilization and the main storyline, which involves kids that were in a coma before his car accident, we see them again and they look exactly the same. Somebody really should have caught that. Strange really should have been out of action for a decade between seeking a medical cure for his hands, giving up and going to the temple, and then learning his mad sorcery skillz. But not.
Still, if you can get past the first part of the movie, it’s pretty good stuff. And again, I’m not much of a Dr. Strange fan. (Although he’s been used well in some storylines, and is a major player in the Marvel universe.) Still, and again, these movies *have* to get better. And with a year off until the next one, with newly created characters, they seem to be moving in exactly the wrong direction.
What should they do? I have thoughts. But that’s another article.
