Doctor Strange (5 Stars)

After watching the undisputed weakest MCU film yesterday, I decided to watch one of the best MCU films today. Despite complaints of whitewashing (casting a white British actress as an Asian character) it's an excellent film. Tilda Swinton fits into the role much better than I expected. My readers might accuse me of being a hypocrite. I'm one of the strongest critics of Idris Elba being cast as a Norwegian God in "Thor", so why do I accept Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One? I think the answer is that I don't accept her, I merely tolerate her. I know that she's the wrong actor for the role, but she's such a good actress that I can overlook the casting mistake. She was killed in this film, so we don't have to put up with her in future MCU films.

I have less problems with Chiwetel Ejiofor being cast as Baron Mordo. In the early comics his race is ambiguous. It wasn't until much later, 25 years after his first appearance, that an origin story was written claiming that he was of Romanian descent. For me this was a non-canon story, so I'm happy with him being portrayed by a black character.

I love the visual effects in "Doctor Strange", but what makes the film so good to me is the fact that after the origin story is out of the way the action comes fast and furious with hardly a pause. This is what an action film should be like.

One very slight criticism I have of the film is the portrayal of Dormammu as an enormous non-corporeal being, similar to Galactus in the second Fantastic Four film. The comics always showed him in humanoid form with a burning head. I assume the filmmakers wanted him to look scarier, but the change was unnecessary. Whoever Stan Lee created was perfect exactly exactly as he created him.

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