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I liked this movie overall, but I very much agree that the best stuff about it is in the imaginative special effects and set pieces but the rest doesn't hang together very well. A lot of the quips felt forced / out of place and the villain was barely there (but did good work with what he had.) I did quite like the ending reverse-time fight and the final confrontation.Sir Kodiak posted:I get the weariness with yet another origin story, but the character transition from master one rarified set of techniques to another, from surgeon to wizard, is relatively fertile ground for exploration. And the moment where him having to make that transition is the most difficult, where he kills someone, is one of the best character moments in the movie. The problem to me is that's NOT the moment he makes the transition. He basically does that off-screen. We have the moment on Everest when he I guess figures out how to overcome his pride by waving his hands in a circle, but even then the moment of success isn't shown -- we cut back to A1 and Mordo and Strange just falls out of a hole in the air ready to be the sorcerer supreme. There's stuff about his eidetic memory and being able to read and remember lots of books very fast but none of his magical talents feel earned in any real way. Like, I know this is a comic book movie etc etc but I think it would have benefited them to make magic a whole lot more dangerous and difficult. From what we see, all you need to be able to open portals to anywhere you want is a special ring and like a day's training. Anyone can do it! So why doesn't everyone? The only consequences we see are from the one guy that does a ~forbidden ritual~. The unclear timeline makes this worse, especially because we have a solid tie-in to the rest of the MU with the line about helping a soldier with a crushed spine right before Strange gets into his car accident. From that alone, we know that the ENTIRE movie takes place after CW -- starting with Strange spending months in rehab, exhausting modern medicine and going on his life-changing journey that results in him sitting with Thor at the end. This is something that, IMO, should have taken a decade. Unfortunately, we have no frame of reference and it doesn't feel like more than a few months at most to go from a man of science to one that can wave hands and push people into other dimensions. I think it would have benefited the movie to have him start before Iron Man 1 -- maybe show the passage of time with world events mentioned in passing as he sweats and trains? Maybe make the scene where he emails whatserface a result of him hearing about a terrifying attack on New York? I think they wanted to have cake and eat it too. An origin story that doesn't bog down with the training montage / learning section. There's a BIT of training montage but not nearly enough for the powers that he finds himself using. No one even really remarks on the progress he's making, IIRC! Mordo could have a whole 'he's doing too much, too fast! This should be taking him a lifetime!' or something. Even if he's a magical prodigy destined one it's hard to see that when there's no one else to compare him to. E: Oh, and the timeframe problem exists within the movie itself, too. Kaecilius steals the ritual then I guess sits on it for the entire time Strange is going through his journey. Would it have worked better if they joined up at the same time and came up together through the ranks, becoming friends and poo poo before Kaecilius turns to evil midway through? Certainly would have been a longer, different-paced movie. NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Nov 11, 2016 |
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Nov 11, 2016 18:41
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Drifter posted:I'll say I feel like 70% of the MCU up until this point is worthless, but even I recognized a Justin Hammer reference when I hear one. DO you not remember in one of the Iron Mans when Stark's at court and they show a Justin Hammer mechsuit on a TV that folds a soldier testing it in half? Honestly, no.  I mean, I do now that I'm reminded but I didn't make the connection at the time. That's a bit better then, but the bulk of the objection still stands -- there's no sense of the passage of time within the movie itself, and asking for the audience to remember a 5-second gag from a different film that came out 6 years ago as the only indication of the timeline is sort of a tall ask. Especially when we just had another person getting a spine crushed while in power armor much more recently.
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Nov 11, 2016 21:44
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Drifter posted:I'd argue that time progression doesn't really matter, however. His journey is one of morality and compassion and responsibility, not of becoming a good sorcerer. Sorta? But the specific task that he's shown to overcome is based on simple self-preservation. He gets dumped on Everest and has to get back. What does that have to do with compassion? They could have had some contrived 'you better learn this magic to save some orphans from a burning building!' or something and maybe it would have worked better for me? quote:We know he's a good sorcerer, and we don't need to watch Marvel's A Harry Potter Story. I mean, they don't do a good job really, but it's fun. I don't disagree that it's fun. I did like the movie, this stuff just sticks in my craw a little because (especially in the MCU so far) all the heroes have some sort of special reason or event that makes them what they are. In Strange's case (and all other sorcerer's as far as we know) it turns out all you need is some book learnin'. I would have liked more showing what happens to failed sorcerers or something. Novices trapped in other dimensions and getting turned inside out when they try the wrong ritual or eaten by Dormmamu when they read the wrong book. MisterBibs posted:the methods to being really good at being a scientist and a doctor really fast are the same ones that get you really good at being a spell-slinger. See, this is why I think the lack of time passing bugs me. He does specifically say that to become a good doctor it took YEARS of study but we never get the impression that magic takes real dedication and hard work (though we never see him in med school either so maybe he just cruised through that too.) The joke about using Google Translate for Sanskrit irked me too -- feels like a cheap shortcut. All this stuff could have been mostly-fixed by giving doctor whatserface a 'I haven't heard from you in three years!' line or something. E: My fanfic version of the movie has Strange and Kaecilius being acolytes together and having a climactic event where they have to protect the NY sanctum during the invasion in Avengers, where Kaecilius has someone die on him or something and thinks it's unconscionable that A1 won't help out the regular citizens trapped out in the streets because it'll draw attention or whatever. NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Nov 12, 2016 |
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Nov 11, 2016 23:58
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Have you read the rest of Nextwave? In the end all humor's subjective but in context it's not wacky for the sake of wacky -- it very much fits the tone of the whole piece. By extension I guess you can then accuse the whole thing of being too wacky but that's kind of what it's going for so stuff like that page fits right in. E: To me this is like saying a Leslie Nielsen movie is bad because puns aren't funny. NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Nov 19, 2016 |
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Nov 19, 2016 19:47
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