I freely admit that I was skeptical until the very end that comic book fans would ever get a good or respectable movie about “Doctor Strange.” Some comics just don’t translate at all to the cinematic medium. Thankfully, director Scott Derrickson proves me wrong, providing a cinematic adaptation of “Doctor Strange” that’s very much its own superhero tale while also embedding itself as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Marvel spirit is in full force here, but the movie does take the source material seriously while subtly injecting a sense of whimsy here and there. “Doctor Strange” comes during a good time where movie audiences like some magic with their adventures, and Doctor Strange is that kind of fantasy movie for comic book fans that they’ve always wanted.
Tag Archives: Adventure
Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell (2016)
You can’t get anymore Halloween than teaming up Marvel’s monstrous Hulk alongside the Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange. On Halloween Night, demons begin wreaking havoc in New York City, prompting Doctor Strange to do everything he can to slay them and bring them in to his holding cell in his temple. Thankfully he calls upon the Incredible Hulk to help him, and Hulk is more than happy to oblige in stomping some demons. Little does Hulk know that the demons are manifestations of human victims that are being held hostage by the villainous Nightmare who has kept them held in their own dream plains. Strange ventures in to the dream dimension to save Bruce Banner when Nightmare begins using the Hulk to hurt Strange.
Dr. Strange (1978) (DVD)
The 1978 TV movie “Dr. Strange” is one of the many failed pilots for a potential series based on a Marvel comic. This is yet another of the many seventies pilot movies that didn’t just misunderstand the source material, but didn’t have enough of a budget to realize the concept of its characters. Dr. Strange is a man who battles demons and monsters, and uses his will to use magic. “Dr. Strange” looks like a supernatural version of “Quincy M.E,” following a Dr. Stephen Strange as he focuses his efforts on troubled patients in his hospital while accidentally entering in to the magical arts. The movie even goes so far as setting up the entire series with the beautiful Jessica Walter as the series’ primary antagonist, but the storyline is a big hint at a sequel that would never come. It’s probably a good thing since the pilot movie is ninety minutes and we only get to see Dr. Strange in full garb in the final half hour.
Space Jam (1996)
IN SELECT THEATERS — If you haven’t had a massive amount of nostalgia to frame the memories for “Space Jam,” then odds are you won’t really enjoy the mix of Michael Jordan, The Looney Tunes, and Bill Murray, for some reason. Without the nostalgia, “Space Jam” is just a mediocre animated comedy that is made by a committee, and used to boast the waning popularity of Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes. There’s also Bill Murray for some reason. Back in the mid nineties, Michael Jordan was sports royalty and was playing baseball professionally; someone had the bright idea to give him a movie co-starring timeless cartoon characters because that’s how stuff works. For all its faults (and there are a lot of them) “Space Jam” is a perfect storm of urban appeal, and family appeal that managed to make it a veritable marketing juggernaut in 1996.
“Haters Back Off” Season Review
For the uninitiated, Miranda Sings is a combination of Napoleon Dynamite and Mary Katherine Gallagher from “Superstar.” I’ll admit I was only made aware of the Youtube comedy personality “Miranda Sings” about a year ago, and that’s due to the tributes by Youtube family “The Eh Bee Family.” Miranda Sings is a brutally deluded and creepy woman who spends a lot of her time performing and is a celebrity in her own mind. She’s the girl you’d likely see during opening auditions of “American Idol” back in 2001 who would argue incessantly with the judges after giving a heinous audition. After opting not to send her to Hollywood, she’d argue with them for twenty minutes before having to be escorted out of the room, and would likely force her way back in a few times begging for another song to sing. She’d then storm down the lobby swearing the judges knew nothing about singing.
The Book of Life (2014)
“The Day of the Dead” is such a fascinating holiday filled with so much interesting lore, that there’s a lot more material left for five more animated films of this ilk. Jorge Gutierrez has spent a long time trying to expose audiences to Latin and Hispanic heroes and complex characters, and with “The Book of Life” he succeeds yet again. “The Book of Life” is a wonderful animated romance in the vein of the classic Disney films, but it’s also a respectful tale set amidst the backdrop of the Day of the Dead. A group of rowdy grade schoolers are in for a unique field trip when they’re taken in to a museum by a mysterious tour guide who relays to them an epic story of love, life, and death. Set in the Mexican town of San Angel, we meet three childhood friends Manolo, Maria, and Joaquin, all of whom have spent enormous amounts of time together and are facing adulthood with pressures to grow up and realize their potential.
Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016)
It’s too bad we get a Halloween comedy, but it’s a man who’s based his entire career around a character tailored for religious audiences. I’m not saying the religious can’t celebrate Halloween, but Tyler Perry seems to center his movie on the holiday for absolutely no reason other than grabbing October crowds. “Boo! A Madea Halloween” isn’t a bad movie by any stretch, but it is Tyler Perry’s most unfocused and tonally inconsistent. Perry has no idea how to handle the aesthetic of Halloween. He can’t even use it as a means of conveying what could have been a very touching story about a dad who is trying to gain control of his increasingly out of control daughter. Halloween is more of an after thought here.