Doctor Stephen Strange: A man of medicine and healing, a neurosurgeon without compare, and a bit of an egomaniac. His career takes a nosedive however when a car accident leaves his hands shattered and unusable. After modern medicine has failed him, he travels to Nepal and arrives at a place called Kamar-Taj, where he discovers a sorceress known only as "The Ancient One". She thrusts the good doctor into a fantastical new realm where he needs to forget everything he once knew and to start over. Doctor Strange will emerge from this experience to become something more...magical...
In the eight years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe spread across films, TV shows, and Netflix, we've witnessed quite a variety of superhero stories. From the technology and modern world of Iron Man, to WWII & Captain America, to Thor & Viking myths, to space & the Guardians of the Galaxy. We've seen Ant-Man in a heist film, The Avengers assembling to fight threats and each other, the Agents of SHIELD in spy stories, to the dark underbelly of New York with Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. It's no surprise then that they've decided to tap into yet another side of the comics that hasn't been seen yet: the magical and the mystical, the weird and wondrous. And who better to showcase this than Marvel's go-to guy for magical maladies and mysteries, the Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange?
The good Doctor made his debut in July 1963's Strange Tales #110. Unusually for many of the Marvel heroes that got adapted so far, Stan Lee didn't have a lot of involvement in this particular character. Instead, artist Steve Ditko (Co-creator of Spider-Man) is the main man behind Doctor Strange. Inspired by the likes of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and various Eastern philosophies and mysticism, the comics lived up to the character's namesake. The stories, combined with psychedelic visuals and larger than life adventures, were an instant hit that particularly resonated with the 1960's counterculture, lasting to today where he continued his role as the Sorcerer Supreme and watchdog against other dimensional threats towards the Earth.
I myself never really heard of this character until the 2000's through word of mouth. I never read any of his comics, knew nothing about his story and characters, until curiosity through cartoon & video game appearances led me to look up more about him. So by the time the Marvel Cinematic Universe became a thing, Doctor Strange was one of my top picks to see adapted and was delighted when his movie was officially announced in 2013 as the 14th movie in the MCU.
All in all I really enjoyed this, both as an MCU movie and general cinematic experience. I daresay that this is one of the few times that I was tempted to actually watch it in 3D despite my disdain for it. Alas I opted not too since I'm such a nerd that I wanted to actually care about the story and characters beyond pretty pictures.
The story is actually very familiar in a lot of ways, which is ironic given the title character. It follows the standard MCU formula we've gotten used to by now for many of the characters; their background, their craft, the circumstances for them going down the path of a hero, the villains they fight, the stakes that are raised, seeing our hero kick ass & take names, and set up events for future stories. I'm not sure if this qualifies as a bad thing because I'm a sucker for these types of stories and anything involving Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. I suppose that if you tire of this, perhaps visuals might be the way to go, but I'll talk about that in a bit.
Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a good character, and I'll be going into him quite a bit since he'll most certainly be back for future movies. He reminds me a bit of Tony Stark, except not quite that much of an egomaniac. He most certainly believes in his superiority, but unlike genius billionaire Tony Stark, Stephen Strange is a neurosurgeon and a damn good one. We see him back up his talents by saving a patient that has already been declared brain-dead, and being so at ease with his work that he casually talks music trivia during his procedures. His arrogance is also on display when his colleague/love interest notes how he saves others just to better himself, and see him reject various cases for more difficult ones to challenge himself and improve his reputation, so when he gets into his accident it almost seems cathartic.
Once we see him arrive at Kamar-Taj and become involved in the mystic arts, we see a slight shift in his character. Getting flung across time and space by the Ancient One and getting stranded on Mt. Everest most certainly humbles him, but his quick learning and desire to go beyond and question his lessons shows that his arrogance and ego are still strong. Once he discovers the true extent of the mystic arts and what he must do, he finally learns one of the most important lessons of the Ancient One: He tempered his ego, gave himself to the flow of the river, and learned to control it and ascend. By the end of the movie he may still snark, but it is tempered by his duty and new responsibilities as the premier sorcerer of Earth.
The rest of the protagonists are pretty basic or don't have much to go for them. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) is Strange's colleague and love interest. She's the "audience surrogate", a stand in for us experiencing all the weirdness that Strange eventually shows her. Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is the one that brings Strange to Kamar-Taj and is shown to be a firm believer in the Ancient One's teachings and the roles of a sorcerer. His strong, if immovable, belief would become a problem by the end of the movie and set things up for the future. Wong (Benedict Wong) is the super-serious guardian of the magical scrolls and texts. And naturally he's a punch line for modern and pop culture jokes. Finally there's Doctor Strange's mentor, The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). Like any good mentor character, she dispenses wisdom and teachings that are rooted in real world practice and can be applied to our everyday lives, has more secrets than she lets on, and when forced to take action she can kick all kinds of ass.
One of the deserved criticisms of the MCU is its lack of compelling, interesting, and long-lasting villains. Loki of the Thor movies really is the best of the bunch, while the rest are either underdeveloped, boring, super-serious stick-in-the-muds, or are a one-trick pony. While I don't feel that any of the other villains are awful, there are a few that are definitely at the far end of quality.
Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) in my opinion falls somewhere in the good pile, but just barely. On one hand, he's yet another villain that turned bad because of the misguided actions of the mentor character. We've seen something similar in Iron Man 1, Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Ant-Man. He's also a villain that's rather one-note and doesn't end up doing much to contribute to the climax and just getting tossed aside. What pushes him to being one of the better villains for me are two things:
1. He's a legitimate threat. While he may be yet another villain with the same power source as the heroes (Iron Man trilogy, The Incredible Hulk, Thor 1, Captain America 1, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man), I can let it slide here because of the infinite possibilities with spells and sorcery. He poses enough of a problem for our hero that he had to resort to less-than-legal means in order to finally do him in.
2. His dry humor in small doses. Kaecilius straddles the line between super-serious stick-in-the-mud villain and overly-jokey never-shut-up villain. He's not throwing out quips nor ends up like Wong where jokes fall flat on him. Instead his humor comes from his nonchalant reaction to Strange's attempts to try and get the better of him.
But of course, what makes Doctor Strange stand out amidst its MCU brethren are the visual effects. It is definitely a movie that must be seen on a big screen to be fully appreciated, whether in standard 2D or in 3D/Imax. Director Scott Derrickson cited influences like Steve Ditko's visuals in the comics, M.C. Escher, and Inception to allow reality to be warped in all kinds of strange ways. Watching the movie and seeing cities get reshaped, building interiors looking like kaleidoscopes and hallways with endless and infinite depth really makes for one trippy and exciting flick. Even taking those aside, Doctor Strange also opens the possibility of different dimensions, and we're given a taste of that when Strange is sent on a joy ride through the multiverse by The Ancient One, seeing something that's most likely inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The strange visuals in turn also provides us something different as far as the action scenes go. We've gotten used to the idea of magical action being similar to Harry Potter, with magic bolts or whathaveyou being flung back and forth by our heroes and villains. It can definitely get boring after a while. In this film the magic is derived less from spells and more from the alteration of reality and nature, allowing for very unique fights that we haven't seen in MCU movies before. At various points in the movie, martial arts are also involved with the usage of wirework and making it a little Wuxia-ish or similar to The Matrix.
FINAL THOUGHTS
All in all, Doctor Strange is definitely a delight to watch. It's not going to profoundly change your life, but it most certainly will entertain you. A combination of the old and familiar and the addition of some fantastical visuals will keep you in your seats and away from boredom, and the possibility of seeing these visuals on the big screen again and various plot points and character revelations will also invest you for a possible sequel. As a standalone comic book superhero movie, it gets high marks and has enough in it to entertain the average movie-goer or for those interested in seeing something out of this world on the large silver screen. On its own, I give it a solid 4/5.
As a movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, it's trickier. It certainly did an important and effective job with introducing a new side of this world that we haven't seen yet, and it's strong enough to be necessary on its own unlike say Thor: The Dark World, but because it's an origin story and introduction to a new major player for the rest of Phase 3, it needed to introduce a lot. There are still possibilities left untapped, stories still untold, and character evolution that is just waiting to happen, but we likely won't be getting that for another few years since the MCU movie slate for Phase 3 is set until 2018. It's definitely great, but it's still our introduction. It still earns points for being different enough from the likes of Iron Man, Thor and Captain America. As such, compared with the other 13 movies of the MCU, I give it 3/5.
And so ends 2016's MCU movies. Looking forward to 2017's Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok.
TRAILER THOUGHTS
Dreamworks' Trolls: Not impressed, and baffled that the studio that's famous for the likes of How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda can make something like this. Also adds to my personal annoyance of nostalgia-pandering by basing something off of another 90's property. Wake me up when we hear news on How to Train Your Dragon 3.
Disney's Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Might be good, but the teaser alone doesn't really get me interested. Plus, kind of burnt out on POTC after the lackluster On Stranger Tides. Count me among those people who felt it should've ended after At World's End.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: I'm deliberately keeping away from any trailers or news in order to be surprised as much as possible when this hits theaters, so I was blown away by all this stuff in the newest trailer. Definitely hyped for December.
Disney's Moana: Massively excited for this one since Disney has been on a great roll lately with their original animated films. The Polynesian setting with the ocean is sure to make for some interesting visuals and storytelling opportunities with the characters of Moana and Maui. I'm also happy that this isn't a stupid comedic trailer that Disney's marketing just annoyingly loves to do a lot of times. I'm looking at you, teaser trailers for Tangled and Frozen.
