Why Make A Movie With Cumberbatch If He’s Not Allowed To Act?

(Spoiler alert: if you go to this movie, your evening will be spoilt)

Last Tuesday night we went to the movies:

Dr Strange,

starring two,

in my opinion,

absolutely brilliant actors,

Benedict Cumberbatch,

and Tilda Swinton.

You could have done swan lake with plastic swans on sticks

for all the acting they were allowed to do.

Not that it mattered.

The point of the movie being,

which is mentioned nowhere in the reviews,

at least the ones that I read,

to eat as much popcorn

and drink as much cola as is necessary

(constant ads throughout the theater, and on the screen-

average price, about twelve to seventeen Euros-

slightly more in dollars)

to put you in a state of euphoria,

so you will accept,

not the willing suspense of disbelief,

as those who read literature do,

but rather the fact that due to 3D

you sit through ninety minutes of having swords

and axes,

and anything else violent,

look like they are coming at you

and will kill you any minute.

Then there is the music:

loud louder loudest,

and so terrifyingly bad,

it is meant to scare the bejesus out of you

and set your nerves on edge,

so you are catatonic by the time the

3D pictures of planets

being broken into shards,

buildings being rolled up,

with large cogs and gears chasing actors,

car crashes,

blood everywhere,

doctor scenes,

hospitals,

(somehow the A-team was less violent)

a doctor whose professional life is over

not being allowed to grieve,

or find a reasonable logical way to handle his life.

(Bring back Dr Kildare and his mentor)

Instead he runs off to Katmandu-

to be greeted by Tilda Swinton

as a zen and other beliefs master,

who controls energy

to put up a mirrored locked-off  reality,

so she, and others, can play with different worlds,

and practice power-grabbing

through copious use of the dark forces.

Why did we go?

Oh yes, Cumberbatch.

Reduced in size to a cartoon figure,

(there were really, truly, about three one-minute scenes

where he was allowed to act)

(All Tilda Swinton got was a shaved head)

The rest of the time, he flew through the universe

at about two inches tall,

or in a strange cape,

that moved more than he did.

Yes, people, I did like Harry Potter,

whose animatronics people probably did the special effects here.

At least to a certain extent.

But he was a real boy.

And a super hero

Drawing on his inner beliefs and values and strengths.

All Cumberbatch gets,

is a magical eye

he has to hang around his neck,

and,

in the end,

after using his medical training,

and the logic and photographic memory he was born with,

before he started messing with black magic,

he defeats an evil demon called domo-

really?

by trapping the two of them in a time loop,

thus saving the universe.

For which he is allowed to walk away –

from the most powerful being around,

and set up as grand master of the New York temple

(couldn’t he just join the loyal order of the mystic Nile

optimistic moose shriners?

They at least raise money for children’s charities.

All I saw Cumberbatch do

was wreck a house,

a temple,

a museum,

a city,

a universe.

Oh, and that scene where the librarian had his head chopped off

and caught in a bucket

was really class.

(Maybe he sent out too many overdue notices?)

Ok,

so my purpose for writing this is:

one,

I hated everything about this movie,

from green aggressive screens,

sharp objects coming at me,

and my musician’s ears being bashed to Sunday and back.

Even more, I disliked

that someone who played Hamlet,

with sensitivity,

beauty,

and a real understanding of time place and character,

and someone who played Shakespeare in Love,

ditto,

were treated like this.

I hope they both at least got a new house out of it.

And as for how the rest of us were treated:

I think I shall let the veil of human compassion

fall upon our heroes,

as they wend their way home,

hoping against hope,

that their hard disk recorder has correctly recorded

the beauty, and humanity, and fun

of Miss Phryne Fisher,

and it can be viewed before going to bed,

in the hopes of wiping out the last tinges of this film,

one of which heroes is,

by the way,

using the driving home time

to mentally throw a quick raspberry

to the authors of

the letters

and taunts,

who think that my,

and other friends blogs,

have to be more realistic-

and Watson-checkable to be acceptable.

Dear Friends,

consider the cactus fruit.

The pull-down bed.

The bed-sitter,

Or the edible flying-fish.

Reality is a put-on.

copyright Dunnasead.co 2016