Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Doctor Strange

This is a temporary rating. Looking at the film, a lot of its uniqueness helps set it apart from other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the problems of the entire Disney behemoth are still present. As such, I’m waffling between a three-star rating and a three-and-a-half-star rating. I opted for the lower in order to better evaluate its strengths and weaknesses upon reflection.

Introducing their second new character with an origin story since The Avengers first assembled, Doctor Strange presents the brilliant neurosurgeon (Benedict Cumberbatch) who seeks enlightenment after an accident leaves him without the fine motor skills needed to operate. There, he uncovers a strange magical world that overlaps our own and the nefarious plot to turn over the Earth to a dangerous other-worldly entity.

The film follows a very specific Disney formula. This formula, honed by Iron Man director Jon Favreau, has become the template for all Marvel Cinematic Universe films, giving them a similar, visual and thematic feel while offering talented directors very little maneuverability. That said, a few bright spots have popped out since the series debuted eight years ago. Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier went in slightly different directions each, but did so quite effectively. The latter remains the franchise’s best entry. Doctor Strange tries to take a similar path, shifting into a modestly darker aspect of the universe while remaining lighthearted.

Cumberbatch is the perfect actor to take on this role, though there’s a bit too much of his Sherlock Holmes character in this particular performance, though with an admittedly more humorous bent. Chiwetel Ejiofor makes a good sidekick while Mads Mikkelsen brings his absolute best humanity to a dark, selfish villain that might be one of the series’ most authentic. Benedict Wong is well used, though infrequent presence. Tilda Swinton does a fine job as The Ancient One, but her unique talents are largely wasted, giving the audience pause to wonder why they didn’t just stick with the comic character’s Asian origins.

Lastly, Rachel McAdams continues the recent trend of attractive, poorly-constructed female characters. Hot off the heels of Evangeline Lilly’s mediocre Hope Van Dyne in Ant-Man, the writers have tried to give Strange’s love interest Christine Palmer some strength, she’s underutilized and the character doesn’t seem to have nearly as much depth as needed. Like Lilly, either McAdams isn’t very good as an actress (generally debatable), or the weakness of the character hinders her ability to flesh it out. Both situations may be at play, but it does not appear we’ll have a chance to get a solid, competently-constructed female character until Captain Marvel a couple of years from now.