Marvel Phase III Movie Discussion Thread

[The Unholy Dragon]

Man. Marvel Studios is just leaning into its strengths now. 

 

Great action, great visuals, cool ideas, great characters, great epic finale. 

 

Contrasted against uneven pacing, a weak plot, some gaps in internal logic, poor character evolutions, and way too much sad Benny at the start. Oh, and a great actor underutilized as a mostly forgettable villain. 

 

More than a lot of films, this one had a LOT of stuff happen because of plot demand and most of the hospital scenes are just awful. But like...stuff about the magical group was SO COOL. I really enjoyed how they presented a face of open discussion and no secrets while being sort of stringent about the rules  (and only rewarding those who break them anyway).

 

Anyway. Film plays to its strengths enough that the weaknesses aren't a big deal. Amazing visuals too. Really try to see this in a theatre in 3D if you're seeing it at all, and I almost never say that.

 

Also they seemed SO HESISTANT to do magic, tying it to science and energy manipulation and like...DC just dropped a 10,000 year old witch with no explanation or excuse. Up your weirdness game Marvel.

 

Two mild spoilery notes:

 

I geeked the fuck out for Dormammu.

 

The Mordo post credits stinger made me immediately wish I was watching that movie instead.

[TheVileOne]

That's because Kaecilius sucked as a villain and Mordo really should've been the villain for this film.

To me there's no reason origin story or not why these films can't have better villains.  Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.  Say what you want, but it pretty much does the origin of Robin Hood from scratch and has an awesome, badass villain played by Alan Rickman.  And don't just say well that's Alan Rickman.  Mads Mikkelsen is a tremendous, renowned actor.  There just isn't enough investment and thought in making the best villains possible.

[The Unholy Dragon]

Honestly? I didn't even hate Kaecilius.

 

The notion that he was driven by a lot of the same things as Stephen could have made an interesting parallel. when they played off it, it was interesting. But they never really sold why Strange doesn't go that way and then dropped it halfway. Like the ethical questions in Age of Ultron and Civil War, they keep creating great hooks in the first half and dropping them without resolving when it's time to hit the bad guys a lot.

[AxB]

I stole this from someone:

Spoiler

Something else interesting about this movie - it was a three way ethical-philosophical argument with "good" and "evil" not on the table at all. The contending philosophies were utilitarianism ( Kaecilius and The Ancient One), natural law (Mordo and Wong) and compassion (Strange).

I did actually love that even after everything, he insists on being addressed as Doctor, and behaving as a Doctor. Even though he's no longer practicing medicine in any way, he still considers himself to be bound by the Hippocratic Oath.

[EVA]

I liked DOCTOR STRANGE quite a bit.  I think the consensus is on this one is correct: it doesn't reinvent the wheel, but as far as these types of movies go, it's a really good example of the form.

The INCEPTION-on-steroids actions sequences are a welcome respite from the usual superhero punch-n-splode-a-thons, even if they don't all work (when Strange and a zealot fight in their astral forms it recalls the goofy CG Neo/Smith fights from the later MATRIX films; the big showdown in New York probably pushes the concept to its breaking point, turning it into another overly pre-vized clusterfuck like most Marvel climaxes).  And I LOVED the clever subversion of the obligatory city-destroying finale in Hong Kong, as well as seeing a superhero win via a genuine display of guile as opposed to simply clubbering/blasting the villain to death.

And I think Cumberbatch proves he can be The Guy to carry the Marvel films when the Phase One guys take a step back, which was probably the most important thing that Marvel was hoping to get out of this movie, really.

That said, all the typical Marvel issues are present.  Rachel McAdams in stranded in another thankless love interest role (Marvel even shamelessly re-uses essentially the same bittersweet ending to that storyline from the Cap and Thor origin movies!).  Mads Mikkelsen is wasted in another unremarkable villain role.  He gets one good scene where he explains his philosophy with his trademark silver (forked) tongue that he honed on HANNIBAL and you're like, "Oh, that's why you hire Mads for this."  But for the rest of the movie, I think the rest of his screen time is mostly devoted to jogging/power walking through city streets like he's in some kind of weird goth exercise video.  

It's also hilarious how many action scenes are started by him just showing up for no apparent reason.  Open a door...AH! KAECILIUS. Fend off Kaecilius, walk to another room, have a conversation, then what's that sound?  AH! KAECILIUS JUST WANDERED BACK IN!

Tilda Swinton is really the only person who gets anything to play besides Cumberbatch, and she does Tilda Swinton things.  But I feel like charges should be filed against Marvel for wasting Chiwetel Ejiofor.  Yeah, yeah, he'll get a bigger part in the next movie...That still doesn't excuse giving him nothing to do in this movie.  I don't think him playing the role of wet blanket in this movie is going to make the average moviegoer any more invested in his heel turn next time.

And, of course, no Marvel film would be complete without a completely forgettable score.  And I think I've figured out the problem here:  There are only two types of scenes in Marvel movies: 1) Scenes where people banter non-stop.  I mean, they do not shut up.  2) Scenes wear people are running/fighting and shit is crashing/exploding all over.  There's simply no room for music in these movies (unless we're talking about needle drops, in which case, you can have all those you want and, for a minute, I was worried STRANGE was going down the GOTG road on that front).

[The Unholy Dragon]

The victory by guile thing made me super happy.

 

So after one day in NA and like a week in the UK, it's at about $165 mil against a $165 mil budget. It's projected to do about $50 mil more domestic over the weekend which gives it solid odds of breaking even week one (60% studios first week, remember) and then just basking past that. Definitely looking like a winner barring any crazy dropoff.

[AxB]

Two weeks in the UK. It came out on the Monday (not the Friday) because it was half term and all the kids were off school.

[Eivion]

Saw Strange a few hours ago and enjoyed it quite a bit. I wish Mads got to do more as the villain, but he was nice for the bits of character he did get to show.

[The Unholy Dragon]

Now over $325 mil, so it's 100% broke even and into profit from here before it's domestic opening weekend is over. That is incredibly impressive.

[Casey]

The "Civil War easter egg" that @AxB mentioned is actually a reference to Iron Man 2 and Justin Hammer.

[HumanChessgame]

Has it been mentioned where in the MCU continuity the Black Panther movie will take place?  I'm assuming part of it will deal with the backstory of how the title is passed down through the generations and whatnot, but is a bulk of the action going to take place before he gives Cap and his crew asylum?

[J.T.]

I am so disappointed in you all..

Spoiler

None of you noticed that Daniel Drumm was a character in the movie.  He is the twin brother to

 

 

[Matt D]

I really liked the end theme during the credits. Just saying.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yup but they stuck that in the back half of the credits after half the audience has already left.

[Brian Fowler]

I liked it. Marvel has a definite house style, especially for origin films, but it's a house style I enjoy, all in all. Mads and Chiwetol delivered whenever they got a chance to act, which was sadly fairly rare. Swinton was great as expected. The Benedicts had fantastic chemistry together which hypes me for the sequel nearly as much as the end credits scene.

[The Unholy Dragon]

So Cumberbatch played two roles in this.

 

He was also Dormammu.

[odessasteps]

On 11/7/2016 at 7:20 PM, J.T. said:

I am so disappointed in you all..

  Reveal hidden contents

None of you noticed that Daniel Drumm was a character in the movie.  He is the twin brother to

 

 

Also, credit scrolling shows me that also in the movie is

Spoiler

Tina Minoru, one of the parents in Runaways. Nico's mother.

 

[Tromatagon]

Shit man, I didn't post my thoughts on this.  Saw it at the first showing opening night in IMAX 3D and loved it.  Dr. Strange is one of my legit top 5 Marvel dudes.  Sometimes absolute favorite, depending on how he's used, I guess.

This is my new favorite Marvel movie.  It did everything I wanted in pretty much a way I would have done it if I made the movie myself.  Mine would probably have way more fucked up demons and shit, but it's all good.

[Bustronaut]

 

lDormammu ooked like a gritty update of the MCP from Tron. I wasn't a fan of the design.

[Andrew POE!]

I liked the movie but holy crap did a lot of the story appear thread bare by the end.

At this point, Marvel literally could have anything (Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and now this) and people will see it. The problem is it lacked the 'oomph' that GOTG or even Ant-Man did. Kaecilius you didn't really hate by the end of it but in some respects he acted like The Master to Dr. Strange's Dr. Who.

Hell, they even had a scene that was setup similarly to a Dr. Who episode.

So it's hard to hate the movie but they really didn't have Dr. Strange be the morally gray character he was in the comics.

There were lots of visual homages to Christopher Nolan but it felt more like a Chinese action movie.

 

[Raziel]

Homage ?  The scene pretty much WAS a Dr Who episode note for note.

[Spritenaut 32]

Saw Dr. Strange this afternoon.  Didn't really grab me, though the special fx are extraordinary. 

Was there a Baron Mordo end-credits scene?  I didn't see one, but Google suggests therw was something.  I stayed for the credits, but left after the Thor cameo.  If there was something, can someone post it or tell me what happened.  

[odessasteps]

9 minutes ago, Vader does my taxes! said:

Saw Dr. Strange this afternoon.  Didn't really grab me, though the special fx are extraordinary. 

Was there a Baron Mordo end-credits scene?  I didn't see one, but Google suggests therw was something.  I stayed for the credits, but left after the Thor cameo.  If there was something, can someone post it or tell me what happened.  

Spoiler

 

Dodgy cameraphone version

[J.T.]

On 11/25/2016 at 8:00 PM, Horton Hears a Wooo!!! said:

Saw Dr. Strange this afternoon.  Didn't really grab me, though the special fx are extraordinary. 

Was there a Baron Mordo end-credits scene?  I didn't see one, but Google suggests therw was something.  I stayed for the credits, but left after the Thor cameo.  If there was something, can someone post it or tell me what happened.

Spoiler

Mordo confronts Pangborn, the man that used magic to allow himself to walk again, and during a brief struggle, Mordo takes away Pangborn's magic and turns him back into an invalid.. 

Then Mordo mentions something about the problem with the world being too many sorcerers.

Oh, and:

Spoiler

The guys at Marvel were even clever enough to give us a movie explanation to why movie Dr. Strange is seen in the mid-credit scene sporting the gloves that his comic book counterpart wears. 

He's still a bit vain and wears gloves to cover his disfigured hands.

There is not enough love in this thread for Wong or:

Spoiler

the joke about Mordo giving Strange the pass code to the wifi at the temple.

And finally:

Spoiler

As folks have already pointed out, Rhodey is Air Force, so the Marine colonel patient probably refers to one of the hapless testers of Justin Hammer's power armor in the opening scene of Iron Man 2 that takes place during a session of the Senate Armed Services committee..

The "woman in her 20s who was struck by lightning – a serious injury complicated by an electronic implant in her brain to help quell her schizophrenia" is probably Captain Marvel.

 

[TheVileOne]

Final cut of the movie did say the dude was in the Air Force.  So it probably is Rhodey now.