Available at Amazon.com
Directed by
Jay Oliva, Greg Johnson, Patrick Archibald
Cast
Featuring the voices of:
Michael Yama, Tara Strong, Paul Nakauchi, Bryce Johnson, Kevin Michael Richardson
Running Time: 95 minutes
Rated PG-13
DVD Release date: August 14, 2007
Doctor Strange is the latest in the recent string of the Lionsgate-released Marvel comics films. Starting with 2006’s Ultimate Avengers, this Marvel-Lionsgate alliance has managed to crank out 4 direct-to-DVD animated features in about 18 months. This marks their first picture without Iron Man; other than that, much remains the same. The designs are still pretty good, the animation is still stiff, and the voice acting still isn’t a total embarrassment. And like the others, it is a niche film for a niche market.
The story goes like this: Stephen Strange is the world’s greatest neurosurgeon, and also a giant butt. A car accident wrecks his hands, and Strange is desperate for a cure. The broken man travels to Tibet to seek out the Ancient one. There, he learns to accept his past mistakes, he learns compassion for his fellow man, and, oh yeah, some magic. There isn’t much time for Alchemy 101, as the dread Dormammu is trying to “nightmare” his way back into this dimension via kids in comas. Dormammu is gathering power and sending beasties all over the city. A big battle is on the horizon and, much to the chagrin of warrior-magician Mordo, it is Doctor Strange who is destined to become the Sorcerer Supreme.
The movie is not without it’s charms.
The Ancient One has an anti-monster task force full of characters that are barely introduced, but who are distinguished from one another via their unique magic abilities. For instance, one will have a sort of energy armor and shoot magic beams, another will make plants grow to attack the ghoulies, Wong seems to have smoke-based powers, while Mordo concentrates on making swords out of ether. It gives each character a bit of personality, no matter how much they turn out to be cannon fodder.
And the bodies will hit the floor, despite this being a Marvel cartoon. A hive monster eats the flesh off of some of our supporting cast, reducing them to skeletons, and other characters are otherwise stabbed, swallowed, stomped and/or die in the operating room. This is a PG-13 flick and is not something yuppies would be comfortable showing their children. It feels more like the stories people told children before we were so worried about “emotionally scarring” them. Indeed, Dr. Strange seems to have more in common with black and white serials than Saturday morning cartoons.
There isn’t a lot of expository dialogue to explain the rules of magic in the film’s universe, but enough is implied so that things mostly make sense. Likewise, the movie’s metaphysics are vague and unobtrusive enough to keep the plot moving.
Doctor Strange is a mostly unremarkable flick. Basically, stuff happens and some more stuff happens. Things never really click on an emotional or visceral level. Then again, the film should entertain its built-in audience of animation junkies, comic geeks and Strange fans. You know who you are. Doctor Strange has a couple of interesting monsters and magic bits, but nothing noteworthy enough to merit its viewing by those outside these select groups.
The DVD
Audio and Visual
Short and simple: The movie looks an sounds good.
The Extras
The front of the acknowledges the Best of Marvel Video Game Cinematic. It’s a montage of the cutscenes from “Marvel Ultimate Alliance” and “X-Men Legends II” set to some song about rear-end booting. You can also watch the individual cutscenes from these games.
There is an interesting featurette on the history of Doctor Strange, which focuses quite a bit on Steve Ditko’s trippy artwork. Also included is a short montage of Doctor Strange‘s concept art.
The only other special feature of note is a First Look at Avengers Reborn, a movie set in the future about the Avengers’ kids.
