First things first – this was our first IMAX movie in the Pacific Science Center Seattle and the experience wowed me! The large screen apart, I loved the sound system. The sound seemed to surround me, unlike the Regal Cinema where it felt to be distant and far away. A great surround system is essential in creating an immersive experience for the movie watchers.
Being new to the States, it still baffles Sameera and me why do they not assign seat numbers at the time of ticket purchase. We just don’t get the concept of arriving early at the cinema to get a good seat. Isn’t it a waste of precious time? We entered the cinema hall about 30 minutes before the start of the movie and were surprised to find the best seats occupied. Luckily, though, we did find ones just a little off to the center which wasn’t as bad. In India, seats are assigned at the time of payment which means you could walk into the cinema hall 2 minutes before the start of the movie and occupy the seats you had reserved.
It was a Sunday. Sameera and I were trying to decide how best to spend the evening. We watched the trailer and knew we wanted to watch the movie.
We booked the tickets, had an early dinner and walked to the Pacific Science Center. There was a light cool breeze, but not cold. Popcorn + Sprite and we were ready for the movie.
In the movie, we are first introduced to a weird world where a cloaked wizard fights a group of 3 wizards trying to steal some text. The sequence of events reminds you of Inception where the good wizard rearchitects the world to aid in the fight. Ultimately, the others get away by opening some sort of portal.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, the introduction sets up an expectation that the movie fails to live up to. I was expecting a somewhat serious themed movie with an intelligent plot. But what I got instead was a silly and typical Marvel movie which transcends the genre of SciFi just because the buzz word “time-space” is mentioned. In reality, it’s nothing but a fantasy movie the lives of which Marvel comes up with every few months.
Doctor Strange is characterized as an arrogant and over-confident surgeon akin Tony Stark from Iron Man. Our surgeon meets an accident when he was checking his text messages while driving (a message to all the careless drivers out there) and goes through some complicated procedure to save his life. When medicine fails him, he turns to a psychic, which is very weird for such an egotistical person.
Anyway, we are introduced to the cloaked wizard – The Ancient One – who shows Doctor Strange how little does he really know. The sequence of events here – Doctor Strange traveling through the cosmic space, fingers sprouting from everywhere pulling him down, etc. just did it for me. This was such a stark contrast to Morpheus explaining Neo about the world of Matrix which was way more complicated than this one.
Even though Doctor Strange was new to the world of wizards and magic, he catches up surprisingly quickly and starts performing spells even the highly accomplished wizards aren’t able to. We are told it is because Doctor Strange has a photographic memory. It’s still unbelievable. And immediately afterward, our hero is ready to fight battles and defeat the evil.
The rest of the movie is as stupid and pointless. In the most dim-witted of all endings, Doctor Strange defeats the evil Dormammu by trapping it in an infinite loop of time and bore the evil being into submission. Dormammu agrees to negotiate with Doctor Strange to escape the infinite loop of stupidity (which was just as good for us).
Also, how does the name Dormammu inspire fear? I think it’s a cute name for a teddy! The whole plot was really pointless. I am not going to get excited by any of Marvel’s trailers from now on. The whole Marvel Cinematic Universe is becoming stupid now. I hope they stop it.