Review - Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness

Dr Strange 2 follows the titular wizard as he tries to protect a dimension hopping teenager from a powerful villain.

CONVOLUDED
A lot of people conflate the MCU as being one long story, which I disagree with; it’s a series of smaller franchises that share a universe and occasionally cameo.
Dr Strange 2 however feels a lot harder for new people; it references multiple movies and shows while trying to be a direct sequel to its previous movie. Being more selective with what to bring up and what to omit would have been a huge help, but that’s only half the problems I have with the movie.
Dr Strange’s arc feels somewhat confused about what’s it’s trying to be; is he a man trying to get over his ex, or a hero struggling with the fact that his alternate selves all seem to lose their way in one way or another. Picking and focusing on one arc would have really helped the flow of the movie; it’s a little over 2 hours but feels much longer.
It would also help to tie his story much closer to the villain as well as the new hero, America Chavez; it would make it feel like a much more like a solid movie than a bunch of sup-plots happening at once.

VILLAIN
The villain is much better handled; equal parts tragic and downright terrifying.
Especially terrifying!
The director, Sam Raimi is best known for his horror movies and this puts him right into his element, more so than his Spider-Man trilogy.
Unlike Strange, the villain is much more consistant in their goals and arc.

ACTION
The action is comparatively tamer than the previous movie, with more grounded set pieces which feel more typical super-hero.
The only real stand out is a battle where both sides use the soundtrack against each other, and that is not an exaggeration or a euphemism. Wish there were more moments like that.
Its does deliver on the visuals however; it shows what creative steps can be taken with CGI, with a lot of striking visuals that really stand out, debatably more so than the first movie and with a much more horror feel to them.

CONCLUSION
It’s a messy movie in dire need of a second draft, but it’s distinctive visuals and compelling villain make it a very enjoyable movie.

I’m interested to see how this feels to an audience new to the MCU; a movie should be accessible, no matter if it’s the second instalment or the twentieth, and I’m not sure if this one is.
It’s not a good entry point to the MCU, but it’s certainly not one you’ll forget, for better or worse.

Review - Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange follows Stephen Strange; an egotistical surgeon who loses the use of his hands and finds a new purpose as a sorcerer who protects the world.

PROTAGONIST
As to be expected with a Marvel Studios movie, the best part is the lead.
Benedict Cumberbatch brings a snarky arrogance to the role but also balances it with the tragedy of a man who loses everything. His performance swings from a cocky swagger to a desperate and angry man, with a heavy emphasis on drama that makes this feel like a more mature action movie.
His basic story is not exactly new for a superhero, but the presentation is more of a spiritual discovery than of a hero fighting crime, making for a much more mature character-focused experience.

VILLAIN
A lot of criticism is placed on the villain, played by Mads Mikkelsen, but I feel like this is unfair; rather than approaching the character as a typical supervillain, he’s just a high functioning henchman for the larger threat, Dormomu.
The villain isn’t going to win any awards, but they function perfectly well as a central threat to move the plot along.

ACTION
The action is a definite highlight; combining martial arts with creative CG effects.
It has some interesting setups too; Dr Strange fights someone in spirit form while his body is undergoing surgery, one takes place on a building that’s in the process of folding over, and my personal favourite is a fight in a destroyed street that is fixing itself in reverse.
It’s a really unique action style, even outside of superhero movies; like if Inception was more creative in its setups.

CONCLUSION
It’s not the best of the Marvel movies in terms of quality, but it excels so hard with its characterisation and visuals that it’s one of my favourites.

Think Harry Potter meets Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, while tripping on acid.
It’s a well led movie that combines creative action with a really strong lead, and it’s a solid recommendation from me.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald

Crimes of Grindlewald is about…nothing.
This plot is nothing.
It’s certainly not about Grindlewald or any crimes he may commit.

So in theory the plot is about the character of Creedance Barebone from the previous movie, who survived exploding at the end of the last one, because shut up, and is hunted by multiple people who are after his power.
The villains, led by the villain Grindlewald, want to harness his power for evil, and the heroes want to stop him, while a third party of Yusef Kama, played by William Nadylam, wants revenge for something he belives Creedance’s father did to his mother.
The plot revolves around this, with Creedence’s revelations and Kama’s search for revenge being based on this idea that Creedance is this person.
And it’s ultimately a lie.
This is an over two hour movie that effectively wasted both the time of the characters, and audience,
and this might be salvageable if this was a one off movie about misplaced revenge,
but it’s not.
It’s the second part of what is planned to by a pentalogy and it has no baring on the ongoing narrative.
By the end, nobody directly involved in this plot cares about any revelations, and having seen the sequel, it’s brought up all of once, only to sweep it under the rug.
Seriously, they retcon a connection so Kama cares about someone who died, only so they can take his memory away.
It is amazing how inept this was.

Not only that, but they ruined aspects from the previous movie.
If you read my review of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, I talked about how I liked the romance between the characters Kowalski and Queenie.
The movie begins undoing the dramatic ending where Kowalski’s memory is wiped and separating the lovers, and has Queenie mind control him into marrying her.
They call it “enchanting”, but it’s not. It’s mind control and it’s character assassination of Queenie.
If the genders were reversed here, I guarantee people would be complaining about it (though it would make for a much better show. Seriously, watch Jessica Jones, thank me later).
It’s not even for a satisfactory reason; she isn’t portrayed as a villain or anything, but more a confused person struggling with her feelings, so it feels even more wrong because at least going full psychopath would be committing to the horrible act. I wouldn’t like it, but it would feel like a direction the writer wanted to take.
And I pray to every God that they didn’t have sex while he was like this, because I don’t even want to contemplate the grossness of witch rape on top of everything else.

The movie tries to distract the audience with characters from the Harry Potter movies and books, but there’s no insight and they don’t contribute more than cameos.

CONCLUSION

The plot is fluff that amounts to nothing, the way they have Queenie act like a villain for stupid reasons and a distinct lack of anything interesting makes this a terrible movie in my eyes that I have zero inclination to revisit.

It’s an unpleasant experience and one of the few movies that I honestly can’t think of anything I like about it.
Don’t let those two stars fool you; I wish I could justify scoring it less, but that would be unfair in my eyes.
Even if you liked this first, this is just trash.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

Fantastic Beasts follows Newt Scamander, a Wizard who studies magical animals, as he tracks down several monsters that have escaped into New York, while also being drawn into a conspiracy that threatens the world.

The first theatrical spin off of the Harry Potter franchise, Fantastic Beasts tries to take the franchise in a more adult direction, which I applaud.
The fan base for this series has grown up and with it a more mature change of direction is a good direction to take it (though debatable this franchise hasn’t really been a kids story since around the fourth movie, but I digress).

The issue is with the execution; the story has a metric ton of plot holes that really start to add up.
Characters do stupid things or know things because the plot needs them too, and the ending pulls a Deus Ex Machina out of it’s all to solve all the movies problems.
It’s really distracting when you keep asking, “wait, why is this person doing something stupid?”

The biggest sticking point was an execution scene; Newt discovers the villains identity and he tries to have him killed via a strange execution method where the prisoner is sat on a chair over what looks like Mercury that…I think it burns them. Drowns them? It’s really not clear, but that’s the least of the problems.
Why is the villain using this method? Can he do this? There’s no trial? We saw in the Harry Potter movies that they have a judicial system to imprison people, but execution can be assigned by whoever?
And why kill them? It makes him look really suspicious. A better method would be to use mind control (which this series has established does exist), have them attack someone in public and gun them down in self-defence? Or have them go free and draw attention away from you.
It raises so many questions that could be easily avoided, but they were really set on filming this scene so just worked it in.
A recurring issue when we get to the sequels, but let’s stay focused on this movie.

It’s a very ugly looking movie too.
There’s little life to any of the images, it’s all shades of grey and brown. And scenes in the dark become really difficult to see what’s happening.
There’s a scene where they enter the American Ministry of Magic and this whimsical music plays, but it looks washed out and unimpressive, so the music feels like it’s trying to hard to impress me.

I did enjoy the characters however; Newt himself, played by Eddie Redmayne, is well cast and delivers the idea of a social awkward man who communicates well with animals but struggles with people. Redmayne has great subtle acting to accentuate this; the way he avoids making eye contact, his speech feels nervous without mumbling so we can still understand him.
The ultimate test is that the main danger is a human, the one animal he can’t talk to well, so it’s great to see him overcome his shyness to help someone else.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the romance between the characters Kowalski and Queenie. They are both very likeable characters that have a real friendly energy to them, and they make for an extremely cute couple.
Sure hope the sequel doesn’t do anything to mess this up! (it does)

CONCLUSION

This is a flawed but not unsalvagable movie; I can generally accept issues like plot holes and unappealing visuals if the characters are right, but this really tested my limits.

I didn’t enjoy it, but it’s not without it’s merits, and I can see someone else getting into this movie even if I didn’t. However I can’t recommend it.
The original Harry Potter movies were mature enough and all really good movies (well, except maybe 4, but I enjoyed that more than this movie at least), so I would say they are more worth your time.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Fantastic Beasts: the secrets of Dumbledore follows the wizard Dumbledore’s efforts to stop his former lover Grindlewald from taking over the wizarding world.

I wasn’t a fan of the previous movies in this series, and sadly the same is true with this third entry.
It’s better than the previous movie, the Crimes of Grindlewald, but suffers the same issues that prevented me from enjoying that movie.

The main issue is the abundance of plot holes and irritating habit of wasting time; the first two thirds of this movie are spent pretty much wasting time. Nothing is accomplished, which the characters openly admit to, but that doesn’t make it better just because it was the intention. This is a two and half hour movie with barely enough actual plot to fill a feature length running time.

If there is an issue that frustrated me more than the superfluace, it’s the painfully inept world building.
The plot revolves around an election, but for what the movie doesn’t make clear. It’s for a Confederation of wizards, but we don’t know much about what this confederation does.
Do they superseed the leader so individual countries, because we do see that each nation has its own minister of magic. It appears to be a democratic election, but the voting is thrown out in favour of using a magical animal. Have the people already voted? If so, why aren’t they more angry? A character is arrested by German police at one point and sent to a jail where they await to die by a giant scorpion. He’s a foreign national and a civil servant; these people don’t see how this could cause issues diplomatically?
Things just happen because the plot needs them to, without any satisfactory explanation or resolution.
Two characters who joined the villain at the end of the last movie switch sides with very little convincing; one was preparing to kill Dumbledore, blaming him for being abandoned as a child, but all it takes is Dumbledore telling him its not his fault and he just takes him at his word. Again, because the plot needs him too.
And that’s not even getting into the retcons imposed; Grindlewald in the last movie escaped custody and went on to murder several wizard policemen, and his crimes are thrown out due to “lack of evidence”. It’s all just swept away because they changed their minds about what they wanted the plot to be. If there was a trial and we see how members of the jury or even the judge sympathise with his cause then that would be an explanation because it shows how much power he has politically, but the whole criminal thing is thrown away with a shrug.

The only part I enjoyed was the character of Albus Dumbledore; Jude Law brings a fatherly energy to the role that helps sell him as a younger version of the same character seen in the Harry Potter movies. His ability to dodge questions and manipulate people while also placing a genuine level of trust in them makes for a different kind of mentor; not necessarily darker but complicated, as he keeps people at arms length.
His conflict comes from the fact that he and Grindlewald were once lovers turned enemies, and Law does well to portray a man clearly at odds with what his heart wants and what he knows is right.
The opening scene does well to portray this with little more than innuendo and physical acting, and led me to believe that the movie would be better. However it ultimately ended but being downhill from there.

Grindlewald was a missed opportunity; Mads Mikkelsen again does his best with what he has, with subtle facial expressions that say louder than worlds how he feels, but I feel that the script gives him no meat to work with.
The characters of Newt Scamander and Jacob Kowalski too feel wasted; Eddie Redmayne and Dan Fogler bring the same likeable energy to their roles as in the previous movies, but like the second instalment this movie doesn’t give them much to work with.
Newt in particular feels like a character written for the first movie that plays to his strengths as a social awkward animal lover, but was forced into this new plot without a plan of what to do with him.

CONCLUSION

While better than the previous movie, the third Fantastic beasts movie is a giant disappointment.
Good characters aren’t utilised well, half the plot amounted to nothing and the plot holes really pile up that it drowns out the only part I liked, which was the character of Dumbledore.

This movie felt like a waste of my time, and I fear it may be a waste of yours.
And after three chances all disappointed me, I am officially done with this franchise.
I don’t care to see the remaining movies in this story.
I’m out.
Do yourself a favour and just watch the Harry Potter movies instead.

The Bad Guys

The Bad guys follows a gang of criminal animals who try to improve their image while planning their next big heist.

Animation has really come a long way lately; between Mitchells vs the Machines and Turning Red, more and more animated movies are bringing the energy of 2D animation to movies that have traditionally felt very stiff.
The animation here is top notch; every movement feels exaggerated perfectly and is full of energy, but not to the point where it becomes distracting; it knows when to slow down and take its time to let the emotion of the scene sink in.

This carries over to the action scenes, that are expertly choreographed and full of life.
Every movement and camera view helps deliver a rush of adrenaline, even more so than most live action movies.

Its characters too are well defined and likeable, helped by some great casting.
Usually the celebrity stunt casting of animated movies can work against the movie, since you just hear the celebrity and not the character, but here it feels like everyone disappears into their role, including Richard Ayoade, who has a very particular voice and delivery had me convinced of his character by the end.

It’s not exactly a deep story, and most of the twists I saw coming a mile away, but that’s part of the curse of having seen so many movies; I can see kids getting a real kick out of the twists and turns of this plot.
But while it’s not another movie like Pixar, that combines deep themes with child friendly animation, this makes up for it with overwhelming style.
The editing and pacing are really slick and easily comparable to the heist movies it’s emulating.

CONCLUSION

Its a pretty standard kids movie plot, but a great looking one.
The animation, editing and action are high grade, with a great cast to bring it together.

I’ve heard the phrase, “if Disney is classical music, then Dreamworks is jazz”, and this is the embodiment of that.
It’s not gonna deconstruct anything or examine to complexities of puberty, but it is going to keep you entertained for the entire run time,
and if the previews for the new Puss in Boots are any indication, this is a brilliant direction for this studio to be heading in artistically, with well styled and energetic animation that can give it identity to distinguish from Disney and Pixar.
I loved this and hope to see more in the future.

The Northman

The Northman follows a Viking, Amleth, on a path to avenge his father.
If you’re able to guess the entire plot from that description then you’ve seen the Lion King too.

It’s hardly an original plot, but what it lacks in a new story, the Northman delivers in atmosphere.
It’s a visual masterpiece, that’s impossible to look away from.
The cinematography is gorgeous; from one-shot fight scenes to the disturbing close-ups, it captures the emotions of every scene and completely drew me in.
Not just visual either. The sound design is downright perfect, from the violent hacking of blades to the howling winds; a movie has never sounded this cold.

Action scenes felt pretty sparse and lacking in my opinion, but that’s clearly not what this was going for.
This is an artistic action movie; it’s about emotion and cinematography rather than an updated Conan the Barbarian.
I’m not marking it down for that, but it is something to bear in mind; if you expect an action-filled adventure, you’ll be disappointed.
That said the final battle is pretty epic, but again it’s down to the cinematography.
Just letting you know what you’re in for.

It’s pretty trippy too; somewhere between Midsommar and Dr Strange, with visual allusions to the Norse Mythology that inspired it.
It’s not fantasy; there’s a fight scene with an undead skeleton that’s all a dream, and illusions of Valkyries and Odin, it’s a great way of including this classic imagery while keeping it grounded in the real world.
It helps build this world and sucks you further into the story.

CONCLUSION

It’s every tale of revenge in olden times you’ve seen, but thanks to it’s visual and sound design it definatly stands above the rest.

It’s not the blood soaked epic I thought I wanted,
but the artistic journey into the world of Vikings I didn’t know I actually did.
While it lacked the story or character to push it over the edge, it’s an extremely immersive work of art that I highly recommend to those who wish to journey to the frozen North.