HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Doctor Strange

Michael Osadciw · 08-23-2007, 04:20 PM

Blu-ray Disc REVIEW

DOCTOR STRANGE

Studio: Lionsgate
Distributor: Maple Pictures
Film Year: 2007
Film Length: 95min
Genre: Action/Animation

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Resolution: 1080p
Video Codec: AVC MPEG-4
Colour/B&W: Colour

Audio:

DTS-HDMA 7.1 Surround

English Dolby Digital 5.1 EX Surround

Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 EX Surround

Subtitles: English, Spanish
Film Rating: PG-13

Release Date: August 14, 2007.

Film Rating: /

Voices of: Bryce Johnson, Chris Edgerly, Susan Spano

Written by: Greg Johnson
Directed by: Jay Oliva

Dr. Stephen Strange is the finest surgeon around. His ego is about as sharp as the knife he cuts with and that can make his life a bit more complicated for him. When asked to look at brain aneurisms in a little girl, he admits he’s never seen anything like her case before. He scoffs at the idea that “nightmares” were the cause of them until he sees a horrific face in his mind as he lays his hands on the girls. Frightened at what he’s seen, and even more terrified that this case affects over fifty children in the hospital, Doctor Strange crawls into his shell of sorrows and personal failures in his past.

His attitude doesn’t change until long after a freak motor vehicle collision made his hands useless in the operating room. In search of finding a cure for himself, he is finds himself on a cold and lonely trek to the high mountains in Tibet where he’s greeted a master and his warriors who defend the sorcerer’s dimension from evil and the havoc the creatures create on Earth’s soil. Through selflessness by tearing down the walls around him, and the belief that anything can be possible, Dr. Strange realizes he’s more than just a surgeon, but someone who can help save the world from evil’s destruction by becoming the one and only Sorcerer Supreme.

VIDEO QUALITY: 4/5

I can’t fault the video quality of Doctor Strange. Despite some other reviews claiming poor image quality, I think this is a rock-solid video transfer by Lionsgate. It’s a line-drawn animation film that’s bound to look not as clean as some of the highly computer assisted animations, but for the most part, there wasn’t a single thing in the image that I found poorly done or distracting.

The delivery of the AVC MPEG-4 encode is excellent. I couldn’t find a hint of compression related problems. As expected with all high definition releases (but not always the case), edge enhancement is no where to be found making this a very smooth animation to view. For those of you who are questioning how much better animation looks in high definition over standard definition – the answer is huge. While it doesn’t give you the depth perception as we see with live content, the video is noticeably cleaner, colours have more detail and are absent of noise, and the dreaded compression artefacts that plague even the best DVDs on the biggest screens are virtually absent. The aspect ratio of this release is 1.78:1.

AUDIO QUALITY: 4/5

The default audio encode is 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. While I don’t have a decoder at this time for the lossless encode, the core stream delivers good sound for this fantastic mix. The balance of sound – from bass to treble – is very neutral making this a soundtrack that is comfortable to listen to when cranking up the home theatre volume. The 7.1 surround mix (I listened to it in 6.1) offers a wide soundstage all around the listening space. Effects are adequately placed across the sides of the listener and it utilises the center rear channel effectively for some pinpoint imaging. The music is recorded nicely and the orchestra sound is deep in the front soundstage and extends wide into the surrounds for some good room fill.

Dialogue is fairly well integrated. Only at the odd moment did I feel it was too forward sounding, but overall I thought it was excellent considering that this is a 100% manufactured sound mix. Bass definition is prominent in all channels and tight in the LFE making bass shakers or tactile transducers fun to use on this movie. The Dolby Digital 5.1 EX mix doesn’t offer the same surround effectiveness as the discrete DTS encode and its dialogue is a bit heavier sounding. I think Lionsgate can do without the Dolby Digital EX encode the next time around; it doesn’t make sense to have it included.

TACTILE FUN!! /
TACTILE TRANSDUCER ON/OFF?: ON

SPECIAL FEATURES: 1.5/5

The features on this disc didn’t mean too much to me as there was truly only one movie-related feature, aptly titled The Origin of Doctor Strange. It’s a discussion with the writers of the film and how they are able to design their story and execute it though Marvel/Lionsgate, etc. Beyond this 14-minute featurette, you’ll find a 2-minute Doctor Strange concept art show of how the hand-drawn animation is turned to the action film.

This disc has a plethora of Marvel Video Game Cinematics in which we are able to view several fairly realistic-looking animations based on Marvel stories (Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Best of…, X-Men Legends 2). A six minute featurette on the First Look at Avengers Reborn is not specific to Doctor Strange, but works as advertising for other projects. You’ll find more of this in the trailer gallery that includes Ultimate Avengers 2 and The Invincible Ironman.

Exclusive Blu-ray features would be a bookmark feature that allows you to move through to different parts of the film, as well as an ability to adjust disc/menu settings.

IN THE END...

Doctor Strange is not as strange as he sounds nor is the movie strange. Among the action it teaches lessons of how not to let the ego consume a person and how to let go of failures in the past to become a high achiever in the future…and as I said, it’s among the action. After all, this is a Marvel animation and its first priority is the superhero in the making and his time to prove himself. You can see all of this on this Blu-ray disc that delivers very good audio and video on the best systems.

Michael Osadciw
August 23, 2007.

Review System

Eric F · 08-25-2007, 11:03 PM

I couldn't disgaree more. I bought this and to be honest I'm sorry I did. This is awful, awful stuff. I really hate it. I hate the animation style, the story is boring and why they decided to go with DTS-HD MA over PCM or Dolby TrueHD is a mystery because no one can decode it.

I find it truly sad when the extras are more interesting than the main feature itself, and the CGI animations from past Marvel videogames I found to be the best part of the disc. Oh boy, does Avengers Reborn look bad, this one sounds like a stinker and a half. We need to kill off the original Avengers to bring in a "younger audience"? Say what????

This one will be the last Marvel/Lionsgate disc I'm purchasing. I don't know what you were watching Mike, but other than having some nice bright colors and sharp, I don't particularly qualify that as a good animated title.

Jason_V · 08-27-2007, 09:56 AM

Eric, I'm thinking you expect far too much from these movies. This isn't from the DC Animated Universe; we're not getting Batman: TAS or Justice League quality here. The story did suffer from having to be an origin story of a third tier superhero no one really cares about, no doubt. But once we get past that, it's not so bad...if you temper your expectations.

The extras are terribly below average for a BR disc. There is a 75 minute feature and some measly extras? That's it? Someone didn't put time into it.

Michael Osadciw · 08-27-2007, 04:11 PM

Eric

I haven't seen much animation in high def nor have I watched it extensively on DVD. Grading this image took a bit of thought because even though that animation quality isn't way up there in quality, there doesn't seem to be anything "wrong" with the image. So...I knocked one star off for that reason, but other than that...why give it worse? Maybe I have to be a true animation fan to completely appreciate the best animations.

Mike

Eric F · 08-27-2007, 07:21 PM

Doctor Strange is hardly a "third tier superhero nobody cares about", he was in fact one of Marvel/Stan Lee's original original characters, and a fan classic. I just didn't like the retake on the character.

As for the quality of the animation, you're right, it's not even up the quality of a single episode of a Sat morning 30min WB cartoon. That's pretty sad for a big budget DTV title. I'm sure next month's Doomsday/Superman will soundly thrash it, but unfortunately we won't be seeing that released in HD.

As for the next Marvel title "Avengers Reborn" nobody has anything nice to say about it.

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Jason_V · 08-27-2007, 09:17 PM

I'm sure we can all list at least five Marvel comic characters off the top of our heads with more name recognition that Strange.

Captain America
Spider-Man
Hulk
Iron Man
X-Men

Fan classic, huh? Let's put him in a poll with the ones I just listed and see how gets the most votes. Ten bucks says it isn't Strange. That's all I was referring to.

RobertR · 08-27-2007, 09:40 PM

I don't see any indication that Michael or anyone else saw this in a theater. It would help a lot if someone could say it looks like what was shown there.

Cameron Yee · 08-27-2007, 11:01 PM

Quote:

I don't see any indication that Michael or anyone else saw this in a theater. It would help a lot if someone could say it looks like what was shown there.

Was this ever in theaters? It was my understanding this is direct-to-video.

Eric F · 08-28-2007, 12:04 AM

Direct to video with a fairly decent budget.

TonyD · 08-30-2007, 01:06 AM

well the movie itself might not be so great, but i think at least one feature of the disc is amazing.
the "blue line" is great.

the blue line allows you to move a slider smoothly to any point in the movie.
what a great idea.

love to see this on more discs.

Dr Strange is absolutely a top tier marvel universe figure.
always has been and is very important in the history.

i think right now he is one of the major figures in the world war hulk storyline.
and is a founding member of the il