Last night’s entertainment: Doctor Strange

Okay, okay, really this is Saturday’s night entertainment as I was watching my son that night and last night I held the first bbq of the season. So I settled in hoping the boy had a long night (he did) and as is becoming custom, finding something GeekSix worthy to waste an hour or two on.

I had my options, as for some reason there was a lot to choose from. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers…there are something things just not meant to be watched on television. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith…for some reason I turned it on just as baby Luke was being handed to Owen and Beru. Finding Neverland…well just nevermind on that. And as much as I wanted to stop on Old School or Happy Gilmore, I dubbed them not worthy enough.

So my clicker finally stopped on Cartoon Network and Marvel’s animated movie Doctor Strange. The Sorcerer Supreme has always been a comic favorite of mine. But then again I love magic. And if there is one thing Steven Strange has, it is magic.

Marvel has moved into the animated feature length film business over the past couple of years. The started with two Ultimate Avengers features followed by Iron Man. And can I say I am happy they did move this direction? DC comics has been producing feature length animated fare for some time now, going all the way back to Batman: Mask of the Phantasm in 1993. All we really had from Marvel were some decent (and craptastic) cartoon television series here and there.

But while the new animated line from Marvel isn’t always beholden to the original source material, it always seems to do a good job entertaining. The animation is decent, and the voice acting passes. And Doctor Strange holds to the same bar. It takes us through his origin story, of his quest to regain use of his surgeon hands after a car crash took away his ability to practice. How that quest took him to Tibet to meet the Ancient One, and, eventually gain the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme.

As I said, it skews from the origin presented in the original comics. The antagonist of Mordo has been updated to a more sinister looking version of himself, complete with new wardrobe and muscles. And while I know Wong can fight hand to hand, I just didn’t see him as the complete mystic that the film has him as. Add in the other troops of the Ancient One, and you really seem to be taking it around the corner.

But all in all, for animated, direct-to-dvd fare, it was entertaining. It is always good to see a favorite brought to life in whatever medium it is presented in, unless it is the 1978 television movie Dr. Strange. The scriptwriters were even savvy enough to build in a possible sequel with the last line of the movie. And somewhere in the house of Marvel, a live action Doctor Strange film is percolating. So I get more sometime in the future I hope.

As far as other animated Marvel fare, Hulk Vs. was recently released, giving us the Hulk against Wolverine and Thor in seperate stories. And up next is Thor: Tales of Asgard which will be coming out around the time of Thor’s live action movie and a 26 episode animated television series.