Doctor Strange DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

Apparently this is the fourth movie in the Marvel Animated Features series and, while it's technically a "feature" movie, it really doesn't feel like it. The packaging says this runs approximately 95 minutes, but it runs approximately 75 and this feels more like a pilot for a TV series or mini-series than a stand-alone feature film. Doctor Strange does have its entertaining moments, for something that is set up so improperly.

Even though the movie is only 75 minutes, it feels like they whisk us through a lot quicker than that. We get a bare-bones sort of story and we know there is so much more beyond this first initial layer and it's quite annoying that they leave us like this, especially since this was a fairly long-running comic book. Sure, they could bring on sequels to this, and that would be fine, but I just don't know why they didn't give us more now.

This movie starts us off wonderfully, with a mystical war taking place under everyone's noses, disguised by magic, with this mystical clan trying to protect The Sanctum from the evil forces of Dormamu. During one of the battles, the egotistical surgeon, Doctor Strange happens to actually see one of the battles, even though he wasn't supposed to see through all the magic. Shortly thereafter, the c*cky doctor is involved in a terrible car crash and his hands, his famous surgical hands, are shattered and it basically brings him to ruin. He's offered a second chance by those magical ones he had seen earlier and sets off for a journey of self-discovery, redemption and world-saving.

The actual stuff they have in the movie is all pretty good. The animation and sound quality on this disc are of superb quality and Greg Johnson's script does have some very nice material with some good characters... but you just feel this whole thing is the tip of the iceberg. The first 15 minutes of the movie are set up rather nicely and efficiently and then it just seems that they must have realized they wasted too much time, or something, and double-timed us through the rest of the movie. Doctor Strange's character arc is sped through so quickly you have a hard time believing who he becomes at the end of the movie because we really didn't see enough of what it took him to get to that point. If they would've tacked a half-hour or so onto this movie, it really could've been a very entertaining movie, instead of just a shell of an entertaining movie.

First up here is Marvel Video Game Cinematics which actually has three featurettes here: one for Ultimate Alliance, one for X-Men Legends 2 and a Best Of montage. The Best Of featurette contains a montage of CGI imagery used for those two games which, according to the little intro, you would only be able to see if you finished both video games. It really is some amazing footage and just goes to show how far the technology for video games has come these days. The Best Of thing is only three minutes long and has some slick rock music for the background. The individual ones have dialogue and everything and it seems like a movie but with video game graphics. I'm not sure if these are actually part of the actual game, but they're pretty cool to watch. The Ultimate Alliance one has six videos and the X-Men Legends 2 has seven, most of which are just a few minutes long, but are pretty cool to watch.

The Origin of Doctor Strange is next and it gives us insights from the creator Stan Lee and many others in the Marvel clan. Lee tends to ramble and gets annoying at times, but he isn't the youngest of cats either... Anyway, the first six minutes or so delves into the origins of the comic character from the 60s and 70s, and then into how they developed the movie from the comics. They talk about these little nods and quirks that they added in to the movie that only the comic book people will know about and, obviously, I had no idea what they were talking about, but they seemed really psyched to have these little hidden gems peppered throughout the movie for the die-hard comic fans. The whole thing is about 13 minutes long and gives you some nice background on this intriguing character.

Next up is A First Look at Avengers Reborn, which is a sneak peek at the next movie in the Marvel Animated Features series. We mainly get interviews from the director, writer and some producers which are intercut with a bunch of concept art and storyboards. It's about five and a half minutes long and a nice little look at this upcoming movie.

Lastly we get some Doctor Strange Concept Art and a Trailer Gallery with trailers for the first four movies in this series and, for some twisted reason, the trailer for Delta Farce. Weird.

The disc is presented in the widescreen format, in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The animation is done incredibly well here, almost in perhaps an 80s-ish style with a modern flare, if that makes any sense.

The sound is done through the Dolby Digital 5.1 format and it comes through really quite well, actually. I was very impressed with the realistic quality of the sound, especially in the finer details.

A very slick style here. The front cover is drenched in bright colors, with a shot of Strange in the middle, flanked by Mordo and some demons, with a little corner mention of that Marvel cinematics special feature. The back has a nice action shot of Strange and Mordo, along with a nice synopsis, some smaller random shots, a small special features/tech specs box along with the billing block. This package really should stick out on the shelves.

After this summer in the theaters full of long, drawn-out movies, it's almost funny that I should get this to review as summer comes to a close. While this isn't a great movie, it really could be the start of a great series of movies, or even a TV series. If it just stands as this one movie, though, it's worth watching once, but not much more than that... even though repeat viewings won't take long a t all.