Doctor Strange released to theaters on November 4th and made just shy of 85 million dollars its opening weekend. Rotten Tomatoes rated the film at a high 90% on their Tomatometer and the audience score at a 90% as well. In Doctor Strange, Stephen Strange an arrogant, renowned surgeon is injured in a car accident, forcing him to stop practicing medicine. With western medicine failing him, he headed east with the hope he could be healed. This is where he started his great journey to become the powerful wizard he is in the movie.  I highly recommend this movie, and especially recommend this movie to anyone who isn’t already a Marvel fanboy. In my opinion, I think this movie did a lot of things right, it is one of the most visually appealing superhero movies I have seen, it is as good or better than any of the Captain America movies including Civil War, and is one of the best origin movies produced by the MCU. Second only to the first, credible, and highly successful  MCU movie Iron Man.

     I was impressed with more than just the origin story and looks of the this movie, I was also impressed with how it seamlessly introduced us to many more things in the MCU, like any MCU movie worth anything should, and it even strayed away from the monotony of villains in the MCU. With the casting of Dormammu, the ruler of a dark  that is only filled with pain and suffering and that promises eternal life then takes over other worlds, it is a breath of fresh air from the typical loki type villians and well loki. This film also is one of the first Marvel films that introduce otherworldly almost celestial beings as a villain instead of just angry or power hungry alien races,hydra or disillusion robots, or just somebody wanting revenge. This film also is in my opinion actually decently comic book accurate, and it portrays most of the scenes, storylines and characters as the comics books did, and it even paid homage to some of the more famous artists and their work who worked on the original Doctor Strange comics. Besides some misgivings such as The ancient one being an old man but still looking old, mordo not looking comic book accurate, and Dormammu looking different in the film from his comic book origins. But all of theses are not that important and I understand when transitioning from a comic book to a film there will have to be some sacrifices. Some of which I think were good filmmaking choices as well, one thing I think the movie messes up on, something that I have noticed is kinda of a trend in marvel movies to date, and that is that they cast a villain that the hero has many story arcs, conflicts and material with and defeat him in the first movie which makes it harder to bring them back later on for some other films. Which takes a lot of good film ideas off of the table for Doctor Strange and marvel movies in general, unless they can somehow find a believable way to bring Dormammu and other MCU villains back with good writing and plot changes.      From this point on there will be spoilers so if you have not seen the movie go watch it otherwise there will be spoilers ahead and I might ruin the movie for you.

*Spoilers*

     Okay now it’s time to talk about the many things that were introduced in this movie that are very crucial to the present MCU and the future of the marvel cinematic universe. First and foremost this movie introduced the three Sanctum Sanctorum around earth which were put into place in ancient times by the original scores to make almost like a protective shield around earth from non- physical and otherworldly threats. By the end of this movie we also so that Doctor Strange is now the protector of the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York which is also at the same address as in the comic books. Both of which are true to comic book form. Some of the more important things that were introduced In this film were the existence of the multiverse and one of the last infinity stones, the time stone, or in this movie it’s known as the Eye of Agamemnon. The multiverse intro in this movie is very important for many reasons the first being that it is important for the buildup to the infinity wars ,and the second it opens up a lot of options for storylines, films and character off shoots. It has also introduced a multitude of possible new villains to the MCU, since we now don’t have to rely on just the realms and loki to find good marvel villains. The Eye of Agamemnon is important to the MCU because it is an infinity stone and besides its importance of its raw power and time manipulation potential it is also important because it is necessary for the buildup to the infinity wars which means we might see a battle between Doctor Strange and Thanos over the Eye of Agamemnon for his infinity gauntlet and his dreams of ruling the entire universe. There was also a mid-credit scene that was of Thor asking Doctor Strange in his New Sanctum Sanctorum about the if he knew where his father was and that he suspected he was on earth somewhere, which raises the question if he is looking for his father on earth does he know about loki posing as his father ? Who’s ruling Asgard now ? and How did Odin end up on Earth. Some sources are saying this mid credit scene is a lead up to Thor Ragnarok, I guess we’ll find out. There was also a post credit scene after the mid-credit scene that showed mordo stealing the powers of an innocent, non-practicing sorcerer and saying that there are too many sorcerers in the world. We can only assume Mordo will be the villain in the next Doctor Strange movie where Doctor Strange and Mordo battle it out.