On Tuesday 11 October some savvy Marvel fans (and us media plebs) were able to attend an exclusive 15 minute sneak preview of Marvel’s upcoming film Doctor Strange. Initial teasers and trailers have already given us some pretty trippy Inception-like visual effects but if you’re itching to get an insight into what else you can expect, here’s our shortlist of what we’ll be seeing from Marvel’s newest superhero based off the preview…
1) SO. MANY. COLOURS.
One of the things I’ve noticed with quite a few of the comic book films we’ve had thus far is how muted the colours can be. Obviously because they’re going for occasionally “dark and gritty tones and themes”. But Marvel’s Doctor Strange is lifting a lot of its themes from Steve Ditko’s comic series, which were renowned for it’s bright picture scapes and colour schemes and these fantastical and strange realms and worlds. From the sneak peek we saw this film is going to be full of bright bursting visual colour and paying great homage to Ditko’s work.
2) A TRUE ORIGIN STORY WITH A CONTAINED ARC
We already knew that this would be an origin story, and like with all introductions to our new heroes we see them before they become a superhero. What’s interesting is how critical the life of Stephen Strange is before he becomes Sorcerer Supreme. From the preview, there’s a strong emphasis on us seeing what his life is like before he lands at the doorstep of the Ancient One, and that it’s pivotal for us to understand and be alongside him for his journey to becoming the Sorcerer Supreme. And even though we know there will be more Doctor Strange films to come, it’s nice to know we’ve got a self contained arc for Stephen Strange in this one film.
3) MIND BENDINGLY ROLLER COASTER RIDE VFX
You’ve probably seen the trailer, the bit with the New York cityscape and it looks like it’s folding in on itself right? Well you ain’t seen the half of it yet. To think we only saw just a small amount of additional preview footage, and it’s obvious that the visual effects used in this are some of the craziest most mind-bendingly awesome VFX to date. This is going to be one helluva ride!
4) IT’S ACTUALLY GOT LOLS
The last Marvel film we had was Captain America: Civil War, and look, even though it had its occasional light moments, overall the film was emotionally traumatic and quite dark. What I found most surprising is there were quite a few jokes cracked that we saw in the preview and it’s nice to see a film that doesn’t take itself so seriously, particularly since we are dealing with “magic”. I just really hope there’s a few more than just what we saw!
5) VILLAINOUS MADS MIKKELSEN
Marvel’s films have had a couple of good villains and a couple of not-so-good villains. I’ve got some high hopes that Mads Mikkelsen can deliver us another worthy villain. From the previews he looks pretty damn powerful and strong enough to take on the Ancient One not to mention destroy reality as we know it, so yeah there’s that. Plus it’s Mads Mikkelsen, if anybody can play a sneaky creepy evil and menacing villain, surely it would be Mads.
Doctor Strange hits IMAX and cinemas around Australia on October 27th
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