8 Problems With The MCU That Doctor Strange Doesn't Fix
7. The Cure-All MacGuffins
Watching a superhero blockbuster usually requires you to temporarily suspend your disbelief - but sometimes, Marvel takes this a bit too far.
On more than one occasion, their movies have handed the protagonist(s) an instant get-out-of-jail-free card; a device, relic or piece of equipment that can easily stop the villain and resolve whatever conflict they were recently facing. It's lazy screenwriting at best, and it diminishes the depth of the characters at worst, because in reality, they're not solving their own problems; the script is.
In Doctor Strange, the titular sorcerer is handed the ability to turn back time, instantly rectifying the damage to the city and removing any sense of danger in one fell swoop. His cloak, too, saves his skin on more than one occasion, meaning that Strange barely has to lift a finger to escape trouble.
In The Avengers, Loki's sceptre suddenly has the ability to close the sky portal, for some incredibly vague reason. In Captain America: The First Avenger, Cap doesn't defeat Red Skull with his wits and cunning; rather, the Tesseract vaporises the villain for him.
It's a script issue that probably won't improve anytime soon either, given that the Infinity Stones - an easily definable set of MacGuffins - are set to prominently feature in Marvel's Avengers sequels. Above all, though, it's a shame to see Stephen Strange - one of the studio's smartest characters - being forced to rely on a series of cheap parlour tricks.