There’s something strange about this picture……

Well here we are again, it’s been and gone that time of year and of course Marvel and by extension, Disney were not happy until they give us another comic book movie for us all to gush over and basically give not only our money to them but also our first born children. Already on screens we are seeing the new trailers for Spiderman: Homecoming and Guardians of the Galaxy Part 2, which in their own right is kicking bottom.

The problem is, Marvel does it very well these days and therefore it’s hard to say no to any more of the comic book films. With the likes of Ant-Man, Thor: Ragnarok and even Spiderman shaping up quite well, along with the runaway success of the Civil War film, was it likely that even introducing magic was going to be a step too far?

The answer appears to be no.

We start out with our lovely new Doctor, Steven Strange (played to great effect and dodgy American accent by Benedict Cumberbatch) who is a wise-arse. An arsehole to his former lover (Rachel McAdams) and generally bloody good surgeon who basically ends his career in a car crash and thus is not very happy about it. Off he pops to somewhereshire after speaking with a chap (Benjamin Bratt) who was disabled but apparently made a full recovery.

A quick street fight later, in which a very nice man in a hood which for some reason no-one actually noticed (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor very well I might add) and we see the Ancient One begin ol Doc Strange on his mystical journey through the world of Magic and other weird sh*t.

Cue a bad guy with bad eyes by the name of Kaecilius (played by Mads Mikkelsen who kicks bottom by the way) who wants the world to be given over to a scary shapeless guy who seems to have had one too many bad days and therefore wants to f**k everyone over, espeically on Earth for some reason. The plot of course goes further and that’s where we will leave the story aspects.

I guess this was the special combo finisher in Street Fighter 5?

As this is a mini meh review as opposed to the longer ones I’ve done in the past for the many films watched, it’s probably best to boil it down to this; This was fantastic! The acting brought the characters to full life, the visuals are just stunning and that word is not used lightly, and hell even the ending was original in a strange sort of way (see what I did there?). In all honesty, you will not feel disappointed with what plays out and honestly, I can’t wait to see what happens next.

The addition of humour of course, which Marvel does all the time is in full force here and it’s just wonderful. Even after we saw the joke with the Wi-FI password in the trailer all the time leading up to the film’s release, it was still funny and there are a good number of addtional gags for you to enjoy as well.

Even with Magic being on display which would normally send people groaning for the pain medication, Marvel currently seems to do where we are taken on the journey and as such you just are hooked and just come along for the ride.

It was also noteworthy that they made this a real standalone film to introduce us to the ideas with the Avengers only being mentioned once. We see a real development of Steven Strange himself, with very few characters ever feeling like spare parts or just there to fill space.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tilda Swinton and Benedict Wong (who plays Wong….ok, couldn’t they have given a better name or were they just lazy?) all have something to say and something to sink their teeth into and on screen, it shows.

The writers bring a real something to the table in terms of story with even the love interest between Strange and Christine Palmer not being over the top and perhaps far more realistic than we’re used to, even in full on romance films.

In fact the whole of Doctor Strange is actually well paced with nothing feeling rushed through, and in essence, you don’t need any of the other Marvel Universe chap and chapettes turning up. It just holds its own incredibly well, possibly much more than Captain America: Civil War this year.

Would I recommend this to you? Absolutely without question! It was an excellent experience, one of which I repeated with a friend just to enjoy all the little moments and epic ride it turned out to be, while also being thoughtful. Just go and get working on that first born to give our to our Marvel overlords…. until DC produce a good comic film. Maybe. Ish.