This movie gets off to a dark, gritty start that’s quite hard to watch; but this may be a necessary evil to build up towards what happens later in the movie. It’s definitely focused more on the gritty side, than the coolness, compared to the original, but it makes use of modern sound and visual effects for a deeper impact than the original movie from 1995 which was very cool but lacked seriousness, depth & grounding. This movie has a generally higher quality of production than the original, even if a less cool plot, and it has a higher quality of acting generally, even if the characters are less funky. Overall there’s a much more serious tone this time round, but that doesn’t mean it lacks cool effects, it’s just very careful and conservative with their use, and makes a real statement any time the special effects come out.
Throughout the first half hour this movie’s plot develops nicely – it gets increasingly intriguing and you end up kind of hooked. By 25 minutes in, things have become quite clear – we can see who the star of the show is, and some of the other main characters, and what general direction the movie is taking.
45 mins in, things get a bit dark & depressing again. The dark patches continue to be mixed in with uplifting elements for a good half an hour until everyone fights and the lead character’s powers come out for the first time, which is closely followed by the same thing happening to his comrade Jax, then things start to get quite exciting again. The lead character in this movie is not Liu kang this time, although he is a major supporting character here. The lead character this time round is Cole Young (played quite well by Lewis Tan) – a descendant of Scorpion whose entire bloodline was thought to be killed by Sub-Zero but one baby remained, looked after by Raiden, then Scorpion came back from the dead to help his descendant defeat Sub-Zero in the 90th minute, helping to create an epic final battle.
The cast is comprised of a mix between strong, weak and mediocre actors. Strong actors here, aside from Lewis Tan in the lead role, include Joe Taslim playing Sub-Zero very well, and Hiroyuki Sanada playing Scorpion quite well too. Josh Lawson also does a decent job as Kano, and Mehcad Brooks is not bad in the role of Jax.
Raiden (leader of the good guys), Shang Tsung (leader of the bad guys), Liu Kang (good guy) and Sonya Blade (good girl) are all key characters here too, but their respective actors didn’t impress me. Random stuntmen could have probably done their jobs just as good if not better.
Considering its strengths and highs, I’m going to rate this movie generously, scoring it Pretty Good, which puts it a couple of levels above the original – a serious accomplishment. Now imagine if the four key characters listed above had much stronger actors playing those roles – I’d have to rate it even better, and it would be pretty close to the level of the best action movies ever made.
Based on the very popular video game called Mortal Kombat, which at the time was in hot competition with Street Fighter, this incredibly cheesy movie is a classic combination of slightly cheap and very catchy. It’s no blockbuster and has no A-lister stars in lead roles (although the beautiful Talisa Soto (from Licence To Kill) plays a minor role here, as Princess Kitana) but it does have some very suitable cult icons in major roles such as Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa who plays the main antagonist (a sorcerer called Shang Tsung), and Christopher Lambert as Lord Raiden who is a mostly back-seat leader of the protagonists with outstanding magical powers but limited scope for using them (also spelt Rayden to avoid copyright issues with a 1990 arcade game called Raiden by Tecmo).
This movie is slightly one dimensional, as any movie would be on a less than blockbuster budget, and since it’s made in the 90s its CGI effects look cheap by today’s standards (don’t miss the remake from 2021); but this movie still does a pretty good job at sustaining attention by following a fantastical storyline, being consistently action packed, and having frequent bits of good humour in the intermittent quieter moments.
If you’re old enough to be a fan of the old Mortal Kombat video games, you’ll be extra fond of this movie series in a way that more recent generations just won’t understand.
Considering its unique balance of strengths and weaknesses I could make a case for rating this movie anywhere between Bang Average and Pretty Good, but we’ll go for Above Average in this instance, where it sits right at home with a lot of similarly super cool and very busy but somewhat shallow movies.
Everything lacking in this movie, such as modern effects and a bit more grounding, is kind of present in the 2021 remake, however, that movie lacks much of the cheesy iconography and coolness of this one. If we could somehow combine the best of both of them, we could easily end up with one of the best action movies ever made.
Bear in mind also, the role of Johnny Cage in the video game was originally intended for Jean-Claude Van Damme, but he ended up going elsewhere and eventually did a deal with the main rival video game Street Fighter and appeared in the film adaptation of that game alongside Kylie Minogue (who many years later he admitted to having an affair with during the making of that movie). Their chemistry was great and the movie was fun and the Street Fighter video game was kind of the more dominant one, but when it came to the movies, the Mortal Kombat movies were by far the best, so maybe Van Damme picked the wrong side! Anyway, Johnny Cage in this movie was played by someone seemingly random (Linden Ashby) with a bit of kickboxing type experience but nowhere near Van Damme’s physical talent or charismatic star power. He’s still good fun, but he’s no Van Damme.
Talisa Soto kind of stole the show here with her beauty even from her minor role and without a strong dance partner, while aside from that, Lambert & Tagawa stole the show with their incredibly cheesy charisma. Lambert especially is probably what’s most memorable about this movie. The special effects behind the likes of Raiden, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile & Goro are pretty good too, for a mid 90s movie. Their outfits are pretty good too. And the theme tune music is outstanding, when it appears, but it doesn’t appear often enough or varied enough for my liking – it’s an outstanding concept that deserves to be expanded on and utilised more in this movie, but this is only something proven by its long-running cult following over spanning many decades – it was probably not something so easily provable and commercially justifiable at the time of making this movie.
Other cast members include Robin Shou who played Liu Kang – probably the main protagonist here; Trevor Goddard who plays Kano, one of the antagonists, responsible for luring Sonya onto the boat and into the tournament; and then there’s Bridgette Wilson who plays Sonya Blade, a special forces operator who unwittingly ends up on the team of protagonists defending the realm of Earth.
Sequel
While Mortal Kombat (1995) was a generally respectable movie with a touch of B-movie cheese; its immediate sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) looks more like a straight B-movie. Continuing from the story at the end of the original, at first it’s nice to see the beautiful Talisa Soto returning in a more significant role here, but she’s kind of landed in the sh*t with this one. It’s a shame to see her lower herself to being present in this level of production – the cinematography is thoroughly unclassy and the script leaves much to be desired this time round. Literally none of the other actors returned except Robin Shou as a mediocre Liu Kang. I guess Lambert and Tagawa were either not interested or couldn’t be afforded, and that should tell us all we need to know about the quality of Annihilation. Considering how Lambert kept making the Highlander movies until they became unwatchably bad, it should come as no surprise that this movie is really quite unbearable at times since he’s been replaced by James Remar, who is not really a bad actor per se, but doesn’t have Lambert’s funky touch. I couldn’t help but fast forward through the very monotonous parts of this movie, of which there were many, thus I have to rate this one Barely Watchable, which is a massive step down from the original which I rated Above Average due to its impressive coolness on top of its respectable production level.
If you really want to enjoy another good Mortal Kombat movie, don’t miss the modern remake from 2021 which is no worse than the 1995 original. Don’t even bother with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) if you ask me, just give it a miss.
After watching a couple of Below Average movies before this one, the higher quality of production in this one is strikingly obvious from the outset. Within the first 10 minutes, it’s already clear that there’s no way this movie could be any less than Bang Average, and it has every potentiality to be multiple levels higher than that.
The first 15 minutes are occupied with telling the backstory, which is quite compelling. After this, the movie fasts forward to the ‘present day’ where Jay Baruchel plays this movie’s main co-star (alongside Nicholas Cage, who we’ve already met).
Aside from good cinematography, good acting and good action, there’s also several moments of very good humour in this movie.
The only real downsides are a slight lack of plot, a lack of additional strong or stronger actors, and an excessive amount of weirdness as you’d expect with any good vs evil magicians movie.
Considering all this, and the fact that there’s never a dull moment in this entire movie, in the end I decided to rate it Decent, on a part with movies like Jumper (2008) and Limitless (2011) which were released in similar years, have similar star power, similar amounts of action, and similar levels of plot density and weirdness.
This movie gets off to a good start. It seems better coordinated, more focused, and more consistently captivating than any other X-Men movie to date. So while I’ve rated every other as around about Bang Average, I have to say this is a few clear levels better. Indeed, for now I’m going to rate it Pretty Good, alongside Black Adam – a movie to which this one bears a striking resemblance. The ending was particularly strong here (much like in Black Adam), but the plot building up to that was also quite cohesive, and the drama was quite well balanced with action throughout. It’s not trying to do too many things at once, like previous X-Men movies have often been guilty of; and it’s not stuck between genres like Wolverine (2013) was for example, since that more depressing vibes and the horror factor was hitting home a lot more, while in this movie the dark forces are much more grandiose – much less raw & uncomfortable – thus making it more digestible for a smoother entertainment experience.
Jean Grey is the main hero of this movie, and Famke Janssen no longer plays that role – she’s played by Sophie Turner here and will continue in that role for Dark Phoenix (2019) although that movie is relatively disappointing. Sophie Turner is not the only cast member who’s been replaced either – Storm, Nightcrawler and Angel are played by new actors here too, for example. Several familiar characters have returned though, such as James McAvoy‘s Professor X, and Michael Fassbender‘s Magneto, and Jennifer Lawrence‘s Mystique, Nicholas Hoult‘s Beast, and Evan Peters‘ Quicksilver (who is revealed in this movie to be Magneto’s son, unbeknown to Magneto himself).
The main antagonist is an ancient Egyptian mutant – the first ever mutant – with strong telekinetic powers, who’s been brought back to life from his tomb, within a collapsed pyramid, where he’s been kind of comatose for thousands of years. He’s called Apocalypse and is played quite well by Oscar Isaac.
Sequels
Next up in the X-Men saga, is Logan (2017) – another spin-off Wolverine-focused movie – which we got a little teaser for at the end of this movie, after the closing credits. Then after that, there’s Dark Phoenix (2019) – zeroing in on Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey aka Phoenix or Dark Phoenix. That movie bears a striking resemblance to Captain Marvel (2019) which was also made by Marvel, released shortly before Dark Phoenix and was Marvel’s first ever female-led movie which had been in planning for many years prior to its release. Captain Marvel is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), so that character is also featured in Avengers: Endgame (2019); while Dark Phoenix is a character within the X-Men cinematic universe which includes several Wolverine and Deadpool spin-offs but doesn’t ever overlap with the MCU for some reason.
This movie gets off to a good start, with a highly memorable scene where Logan aka the Wolverine is set free by a prison guard in Japan, when Japan is seconds away from getting nuked. Whether you believe nukes are real is another matter – this movie promotes the mainstream narrative and we’ll leave it at that. Logan instantly returns the favour, by saving the guard’s life, by helping him hide down his prison tunnel and shielding him with its door. This scene was set back in the days when Logan had organic claws, before his entire skeleton and claw system was replaced by Stryker with practically indestructible Adamantium.
Then we see logan wake up from a nightmare, in a more recent time, and he’s accidentally killed his X-Men comrade and girlfriend, Jean Grey, having dug his metal claws into her belly while sleeping. Then he wakes up again, in the present day, now living on a snowy mountain, and he’s let his hair grow long. Then he strolls into town, and the movie begins to get much more into an exciting genre. Firstly, he comes across some extra irresponsible hunters, then when he’s in the process of dealing with them and about to take things to the next level, some red-haired Japanese samaurai chick called Yukyo steps in, takes over the show, and escorts him to her car in a befriending manner. The script that follows is an intriguing one, especially considering the interesting characters involved.
This appears to be a much classier Wolverine movie than the last one from 2011 – not only due to its setting in Japan, although that may be a big factor because it allows for the more decadent and intense culture of top Japanese warriors & businessmen creeping in. Backed by themes of Samaurai, Ninja, Yakuza and a touch of witchcraft-type supervillainy plus plenty of plot twists, this makes for quite a captivating movie for the discerning action hero movie connoisseur.
The pace, sound and cinematography are also well executed, giving this movie a modern, premium feel.
Having said that, there’s a good hour in the middle of this movie, from 35 mins till 95 mins, where the Wolverine is weakened and unable to heal himself – this gets a bit depressing at times. There’s still plenty of good action during this hour, but there’s a very depressing overtone to it all. Fortunately after 95 minutes he finds the source of the problem and cures himself, then the movie is capable of a higher grade of entertainment for those who like smooth, no-nonsense action hero performances. Unfortunately though, this only lasts 15 minutes until Logan is trapped and put in another very uncomfortable situation. This movie misses a lot of opportunity for cool Ninja antics minus the uncomfortable stuff, but I guess Hollywood can’t help themselves when it comes to mixing Horror and Drama in with every other genre, and this is really the key reason why I’m rating this movie just Above Average when it could easily have been more highly rated if it swapped most of its horror genre material for some cool extra action and ninja training scenes for example. Still, you can’t please everyone – there will be those who want more of the ugly Horror and irritating Drama. Indeed, this movie seems to be getting a bit lost between genres and that’s really the basis of its downfall I think, irrespective what my personal preference favours.
One of the most intersting scenes is at the very end, amongst the closing credits, where Magneto appears, along with Professor X back from the dead, both asking Logan for help due to dark forces threatening the fate of the world. Now why couldn’t they have a bit of that going on within in the main body of the movie itself? Especially since there were so many scenes of Jean Grey speaking to Logan from the dead – she could have helped out in a more significant way at least once.
The main cast members of this movie include Hugh Jackman as Logan aka Wolverine; Rila Fukushima as Yukio; Svetlana Khodchenkova as Viper; Tao Okamoto as Mariko Yashida; Hiroyuki Sanada as Shingen Yashida (Mariko’s father); Hal Yamanouchi as the Silver Samurai (Mariko’s grandfather, and head of the corporation, making him officially the most powerful person in Japan); and Will Yun Lee as Kenuichio Harada (leader of the ninja clan)
This movie is an overload of messy drama and uncoordinated action. It’s as if a kid became the director and was spoilt for choice which superheroes to focus on so he picked every superhero and put them all together but none of them really had a chance to shine. Well, Iron Man (played quite well by Robert Downey Jr) has a few good bits, but for the most part, it’s like too many cooks are spoiling the broth.
This reminds me of Ocean’s Eleven – when it came out with both Brad Pitt and George Clooney in the same movie (not to mention Matt Damon and Julia Roberts too), although I were only a teenager at the time, I expected it to be twice as good as the average Pitt or Clooney movie, but no, it was a massive disappointment, like they were too busy partying to produce anything worth watching. Of course I can look back these days and appreciate what little that movie has to offer, but it’s still far from what it should have been, and this movie – The Avengers – suffers from pretty much the same problem.
The most interesting part comes 1 hour and 40 minutes into the movie, when the sky opens up and the aliens invade earth. But 1 hour and 40 minutes is a time when the average movie has already finished – it’s a long time to sit through drama and spurts of uncoordinated action while waiting for the really good scenes to arrive. Having said that, it doesn’t play out nearly as well as it initially seemed like it might have done. The fight scenes when the aliens come down from the sky are mostly barely any better than something you’d expect from an old episode of the Power Rangers. But there’s a good half an hour left in this long movie to play out the ending properly if it wanted – this longwinded movie goes on for nearly 2 and a half hours but it’s mostly boring filler drama, full of verbal arguments – not a good headspace to be in, which is why it took me several sittings to get through this movie, and this should never be the case with a thrilling action movie – I shouldn’t have mostly forgotten the first hour by the time I get round to watching the third hour – this makes for a weak review, but hey, it’s a weak movie, and that’s one thing I remember thinking since the start. I rate it Bang Average, on a par with Iron Man 2 which came out 2 years prior and was disappointing compared to the first Iron Man movie which I rated a couple of levels higher.
The very ending was alright – it’s one of the best bits, but it’s nothing incredible really.
The main antagonist in this movie is Tom Hiddleston who plays Loki (adopted brother of Thor). He does a fair job, especially for those familiar with the Thor movie series, but doesn’t wow.
It’s also a pleasure to see Scarlett Johansson playing a significant role in this movie, as Natasha Romanoff (the star character in Black Widow, 2021). She was one of the best things about the Iron Man 2 movie.
It’s also good to see some action from Chris Hemsworth – his character Thor is one of the most entertaining in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although he doesn’t do much in this movie.
Samuel L Jackson adds value as always, as the leader of the agency called SHIELD tasked with putting together The Avengers to defend the Earth from otherworldly threats.
Chris Evans does a standard job as Captain America, promoting an institutional angle, barking orders from the front even though he’s one of the weakest superheroes in the crew – this is obviously part of a military recruitment campaign, designed to appeal to those who want to act like the main man in the room, even when they’re not. Cap’s powers are nothing compared to Iron Man and Thor for example, but I guess his character is meant to be super smart (although so is Iron Man, especially with the help of Jarvis) and of course Cap has military leadership experience – it just seems terribly out of place him barking orders to a team comprising several far more powerful superheroes than he. Having said that, he’s probably just as powerful as Romanoff and Hawkeye. The Avengers team seems half comprised of natural & near-natural humans with unrealistically perfected skills, while the other half seem to be physically indestructible freaks.
Clark Gregg returns as Agent Phil Coulson from the Iron Man movies. He’s always makes an entertaining character, and gets far too little screen time for my liking.
Jeremy Renner takes on a major role as Arrow (another seemingly feeble Avenger who somehow fights perfectly enough to compete very effectively with much more powerful warriors than he). I’m not really a fan of this actor, but he fills a role. He’s not terrible, he’s just giving me Daniel Craig vibes – he seems more made for soppy drama, not action heroism.
Mark Ruffalo plays the Dr Bruce Banner who turns in & out of his alter-ego, the Hulk, played by Lou Ferrigno with the help of plenty of CGI of course. They both do an adequate job of it.
Stellan Skarsgård does alright as Dr Erik Selvig – a man we met in the Thor movie series, who is controlled here by Loki who needs him to help open the portal.
This movie gets off to a great start, with a funky yet chilling opening delivering vibes reminiscent of The Matrix or Equilibrium which both came out just a few years prior. It’s a relatively simple opening scene but sets the atmosphere very nicely – not perfectly, but not far off either – it’s got to be one of the best opening scenes ever made in an action hero movie I think. You could call it an understated masterpiece thus far.
The following scenes are quite interesting and captivating, and carry an element of the same vibe from the opening scene, but to a lesser degree, as the antagonists pose a real threat to Elektra, and the movie turns out to be Decent but not nearly as good as it could have been. I would rate this movie just one level down from the best action hero movie with a female lead (such as Wonder Woman which has a better plot as well as better peak adrenaline moments, but a similar level of horror and drama creeping in).
Jennifer Garner stars as Elektra in this movie – she’s an assassin with subtle superpowers. Aside from lacking the animalistic side, her character has a lot in common with Halle Berry’s Catwoman which came out the year before this movie, and the year after Daredevil where Elektra was also featured as a major character. That’s three years running of this type of lethal female action movie heroine. There was also Æon Flux in 2005 and Ultraviolet in 2006 – both respectable female assassin movies from around the same time, with similar levels of martial arts and athleticism too, although not on the same level as Marvel’s Elektra and DC’s Catwoman production-wise.
Elektra has some kind of Spidey Sense, like Daredevil’s super hearing ability, giving her an early warning when anyone potentially dangerous is approaching from very far away. But much more than that, she has the ability to see the near future, giving her the chance to change it and catch people by surprise.
That’s not even the height of unrealism in this movie – there are also demons taking the form of ninjas (within the antagonist ninja clan called The Hand) who turn to smoke when they die. And there are some weirder demons looking like oddball mercenaries, having special powers to do certain magic tricks. For example, one called Tattoo, played alright by Christopher Ackerman, has tattoos of animals that come to life. Another, called Typhoid Mary, played adequately by Natassia Malthe, blows kisses and waves hands that suck the life out of plants and people. Then another, called Stone, played alright by Bob Sapp, is big bulletproof black man, like Marvel’s Luke Cage, while also throwing sticks powerfully enough to chop down big trees. This team of weird demons is led by the boss’s son (from The Hand), played adequately by Will Yun Lee whose scenes work well in a way, but he’s also a bit too fresh faced for the role, like some kind of K-Pop boyband member, unlike his father played more convincingly by the scorched face of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Fortunately, they’re still not quite good enough to kill Elektra.
Garner pulls off the lead role pretty well. She’s a talented actress and is not terribly unattractive either (although the beauty contest in this movie is won by Norwegian-Malaysian actress Natassia Malthe playing Typhoid Mary). Garner’s a bit of a tomboy, but no more so than most female leads of action hero movies. She’s is quite athletically built and this makes her well suited to the role of Elektra – a martial arts expert and assassin who moves like few others in the world can (due to camera tricks).
It’s also good to see Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Shang Tsung from the 90s Mortal Kombat movies) playing the leader of The Hand (the ninja clan that’s been trying to kill or capture Elektra for a long time). He does a great job as usual.
Croatian actor Goran Višnjić (with vibes of a cross between Charlie Sheen and Matt LeBlanc, minus the comedic touch) does a good job as the father of a teenage girl who is being hunted because she’s “the treasure” – the main prodigy child within her generation showing great potential to be a top assassin. Kirsten Prout plays the girl adequately – she’s a decent young actress who has plenty IQ for the role but not nearly so much athletic talent as would be ideal. She has a puffy goldfish face, poor coordination and a gormless bratty demeanour – the sneaky, impatient bratty side of her seems intentional but her lack of athletic poise stands out when she’s meant to be a top ninja prodigy with partly established skills.
Terence Stamp does an alright job as Elektra’s former ninja clan master, called Stick, who comes to her rescue when she’s on the verge of defeat, and takes her back to the dojo along with the father & daughter she was sent to kill but decided to protect – her contract was sponsored by Stick, somehow knowing Elektra would protect them instead of kill them. These are some cool scenes to enjoy – from the near assassination to the protection to the rescue to the training back at the dojo and the feeling of it being a safe place for a while.
In stark contrast to the awesome opening for action movie junkies, the last 5 or 6 minutes of this movie is little more than an extended soppy mess for drama mushes. What a missed opportunity and switch up of genres. These drama-loving directors just can’t help themselves, even when they have 95% of a good action movie completed already. Given the lack of depth to the plot, the excessive dose of horror genre creeping in as the movie matures, and the undesirable soppy ending, I have to rate this movie no better than Decent, on a par with movies like Daredevil (which came out 2 years prior and also featured Jennifer Garner as Elektra in a major supporting role). Just one level down from the best female-led action hero movies of all time (like Wonder Woman), even though from the outset Elektra clearly had the potential to be so much better – it just went gradually downhill as the movie progressed and unfortunately shifted genres from smooth action to borderline horror to soppy drama in the end.
While this was Roger Moore‘s first outing as James Bond, he had plenty of experience starring in a similar role after his TV series The Saint which ran from 1962 to 1969. So Roger was well prepared for this role, and does a strong job here.
Live And Let Die opens with a highly memorable scene where an elaborate funeral walk turns out to be dedicated to the agent who asks “whose funeral is it?”. Shortly after that, we get the classic theme tune to this movie, which is one of the best James Bond theme tunes ever made.
This movie is quite memorable in how it features a card-reading psychic woman called Solitaire – she’s the main female in this movie and is played more than adequately by British actress Jane Seymour.
The second main female in this movie is a black woman called Rosie Carver, played quite well by Gloria Hendry.
The chief baddie, Mr Big aka Dr Kananga, is played adequately by Yaphet Kotto.
25 minutes in, we’re introduced to one of the bad guys’ main goons – a man called Tee Hee Johnson, played quite well by Julius Harris. He has a big scary metal pincer for a hand, and this probably inspired the future baddie called Jaws who has scary metal teeth and is probably the most memorable baddie in the whole James Bond movie saga. Jaws appears in two Bond movies in the late 70s – The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) – in the middle of the Roger Moore era. Incidentally, those were the only two Moore-as-Bond movies directed by Lewis Gilbert, and those were also Moore’s most successful Bond movies at the box office (both before and after accounting for inflation). Just like Tee Hee surprised James on the train in this movie, Jaws also surprises James on the train in The Spy Who Loved Me.
The other main baddie in this movie is played quite well by Geoffrey Holder – he plays a 9-foot-tall voodoo magician called Baron Samedi.
Around half an hour before the end of Live And Let Die, we’re introduced to a man who is probably the funniest character in the whole James Bond saga: Sheriff JW Pepper, played very well by Clifton James. He takes stereotypes to the extreme in a humorous way. He makes his first appearance in this movie, and makes his second & last appearance in the subsequent Bond film: The Man With The Golden Gun.
Live And Let Die was directed by Guy Hamilton, who up until this point had only directed one Bond movie – that being Goldfinger, the best one from the Connery era (and the best one till this day, according to Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic – but what do they know – they also rate Daniel Craig above Roger Moore). So we can probably expect big things from this movie, and it doesn’t disappoint. This movie is not a boring one per se, but much of it can get a bit monotonously predictable for frequent rewatchers, as the storyline is quite a basic in extended patches. Nevertheless, considering its strengths, I have to rate this an Upper-OK movie, alongside Goldfinger, making it the joint best Bond movie so far.
This superhero movie by Marvel is a bit of a disappointment for action hero movie fans who loved the original Doctor Strange (2016). This sequel is so bad, Google doesn’t even classify it as an action movie – Google calls it a Horror instead!
The plot lacks cohesion, lacks originality, and lacks awesome action hero moments. Granted, there is a bit of a plot, there are some kind of new concepts, and there are some sort of decent moments in this movie; but it’s generally several levels below the bar set by the original – it’s not on the same level in any way except in the special effects department. So it should be no surprise that critics worldwide are calling it a flop. Actually, there is one thing it does a bit better – Horror – and we know that’s really what Hollywood loves most! But for fans of comfortable-yet-buzzing action hero movies, this sequel really kind of stinks.
Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t perform poorly though – he does alright, considering what he’s working with here. Elizabeth Olsen plays the ‘bad guy’ – the Scarlet Witch, and does a fair job of that too. Xochitl Gomez plays the butch female superhero born from two mothers (trust Hollywood to push stuff like that) who works with Doctor Strange against the Scarlet Witch. Xochitl gave a very basic performance here – she’s not the best actress – not by a long way – but to her credit she was only in her mid-teens at the time of this movie’s release.
This movie is a bit sickly at near the start, with talk about harvesting organs from a still living man, followed by surgery visuals, the likes of which we get again in an unexpected close-up about half way through the movie. There’s also slightly too long of a car crash scene near the start. This movie clearly wants to traumatise the audience a bit, and/or incite bloodlust in those prone to it. Due to its name I guess we shouldn’t expect clean action – a touch of horror shouldn’t be surprising here.
Mood setting is generally excellent, with great timing where it matters. There are also a few great touches of humour in this movie.
The action gets very interesting at times, and is satisfactory at other times.
The combat is fanciful – hardly realistic – but the sentiment is frequently on point.
Benedict Cumberbatch plays the lead role very well, as if he were made for this role. Additional cast members are generally pretty good too.
All in all, due to its qualities, with the odd drawback, plus the fact it’s not so realistic a movie as what I normally review, I’d rate this movie Decent – no more, no less. It’s a fun movie to watch every now and again, but its depth of vibe is limited due to its near cartoony nature. For this reason it’s comparable to movies like Bloodshot and Black Panther which have a similar mix of realism vs unrealism (albethey generally more believable), and a similar level of action.
Sequel
If you enjoyed this movie, you may also enjoy its sequel: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). However, that movie is a lot messier and of course less original since the lead character has already been fully established. And unlike the original, the sequel is not even classified as an Action movie by Google – it’s classed as a Horror instead!
Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) was also featured in a few other Marvel Studios films released between the two actual Doctor Strange movies, including Thor: Ragnarok (2017); Avengers: Infinity War (2018); Avengers: Endgame (2019); and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).
