Now, I know next to nothing about the character and history of the comic book hero Doctor Strange... I don't think that my older brother- whose comics I occasionally borrowed when out of my own reading material- collected Doctor Strange comics or, if he did, I never came across any. So I can't talk with any degree of knowledge as to whether or not the movie character is an accurate representation of his comic book counterpart.
The film was fine... thankfully, as a stand-alone movie, it could be watched without it being necessary to see the other films in the Marvel franchise. Which is a good thing because as mentioned, there are a lot of them that I haven't seen. On the downside, I thought that the plot was a bit thin, the villain's character was under-developed, and the film had some timing issues: some parts which didn't need much time spent on them lingered considerably while others which were skimmed over rapidly which would have benefit from having more time spent on them. I can't say that I was particularly interested in the explanations of the magic and mysticism from the Ancient One and found my mind wandering a bit whenever these were occurring, but that might just be me.
Whatever problems that the movie has with story it compensates for with spectacle: the special effects are amazing. This is one film- and you won't hear me say this often- that I might actually have enjoyed seeing in 3-D. Benedict Cumberbatch is also very good in the role of Doctor Strange... you can see touches of Sherlock in the arrogant genius. There are the typical Marvel humorous moments- and dialogue- in the movie which mostly works, although sometimes it seems a little at odds with the more serious tones of the first part of the film, when Strange has his hands crushed and his life destroyed. Amy McAdams does a good job as Christine Palmer, fellow doctor and sometimes girlfriend of Doctor Strange, though the role is somewhat limited. In addition, I thought that the climax, in which Strange uses something he learned earlier in the film to defeat the baddie made a refreshing change from the usual city-destroying punch-up that usually is the culmination of this type of movie.
So to sum up, I think that Doctor Strange was an entertaining spectacle, in some ways a typical Marvel movie, but with enough differences to be worth watching on its own merits. The plot wasn't amazing, but it was amazing to look at, and all in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend an evening with family. Oh, and Dr. Strange's cape reminded me of the magic carpet in Aladdin.