Marvel Studios
Psychedelic. Trippy. A real mind-bender. All these things just begin to describe Doctor Strange, the newest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and their first foray into magic. Doctor Strange is the story of Doctor Stephen Strange, world renowned surgeon and all around jackass. When an accident makes medical practice an impossibility, Strange searches the world for a way back, and finds out there is a lot more to the world than he has ever known.
Doctor Strange is pretty middle of the road as far as Marvel movies go. Luckily Marvel’s road is a bit higher than most. The film has Marvel’s standard evenly lit cinematic look. As usual it’s perfectly competent but not particularly interesting from a cinephile’s point of view. This continues to be my biggest gripe with Marvel’s films. While I understand wanting them to share an overall look and feel, there never seems to be any dramatic shadows, any real grit to the scenery. Everything just looks so damn clean and polished.
Marvel Studios
Where the film does set itself apart is in the magical set pieces. By now you’ve surely seen glimpses of these city bending sequences in the marketing. While at first glance these seemed like a bit of a rip-off on Inception, this film takes that basic concept, cranks it to eleven and flips it on its head. Seriously, I went into this film thinking these sections would be hollow imitations and instead got a trip through some mind bending visuals, using them to create some truly unique action scenes.
Plus I have to note the screening for the press was presented in 3D. During the first ten minutes I started getting worried that the combo of 3D and crazy visuals were sure to give me motion sickness … but not a moment of queasiness! However I did find a few scenes seemed a bit dark and muddy but I have a feeling that had more to do with the bulb brightness of the theater rather than the film itself. If you’re worried about any of that spoiling your experience I would say skip the 3D. While it didn’t hurt anything for my experience, it also didn’t strike me as a must, the way movies like Avatar, Gravity or How to Train Your Dragon are different experiences in 3D. None of that here.
Now let’s take a look at our cast. Leading the way is Benedict Cumberbatch. Now I love Benedict’s work as Sherlock, and I appreciated a blink and you’ll miss it nod to that series, but I couldn’t help but be put off by his American accent. Why take a man whose voice is so rich and iconic and make him use the classic “British guy being American” voice? That being said, he still does an excellent job. Stephen Strange is very much magical Tony Stark and similarly the actor can make or break a smug self-important character like this. My only other complaint is they push his unlikability a bit too far. Strange is a total ass. Almost, almost now, to the point of irredeemable. Luckily Cumberbatch’s charm mostly overcomes this, though just barely.
Rachel McAdams plays Stephen Strange’s former flame and coworker Christine Palmer … that’s about the extent of her character. While I appreciate that she never becomes a damsel in distress, she serves little other purpose in the film. In fact, you could excise her completely and would lose almost nothing integral to the story. By far the weakest character in the film.
Marvel Studios
This brings us to Tilda Swinton’s casting as a character who was an old Asian man in the comics. Yes, I understand it took a minority role away. But without Swinton there are literally no other women with speaking parts in this film. So by taking a role of a person in charge, the smartest person in any room, and making it a woman, they both played with expectations and gave us a truly strong female role where there would have been none.
Now on that same thread of race bending, Mordo as played by Chiwetel Ejiofor is an example of a white character cast as black and for once the internet did not rise up in protest. Likely because Ejiofor is such a fantastic actor and just does a great job with this part. While not the meatiest of roles, he takes what could be a two-dimensional caricature and makes us feel like this is a fully fleshed out human being. Also his chemistry with Cumberbatch makes you feel like these two have been working together for years.
Marvel Studios
On a sadder note, Mads Mikkelsen, one of the more interesting actors working today (and former star of one of my absolute favorites, Hannibal) fell into the Marvel trap. The trap being where they consistently cast amazing actors as villains who are terribly underwritten and mere afterthoughts in these films. Putting Tom Hiddleston aside, time and time again we get great casting without the writing to back it up. There is one scene where his character Kaecilius (rolls off the tongue, no?) and Strange have an intense conversation. One where you can see a different version of this film where he is a true threat. Unfortunately the rest of the time it’s pretty paint-by-numbers villainy here.
Now where I was really surprised by this film was just how small it was in the scale more similar to Ant-Man than the larger films like Avengers or Iron Man. The majority of this film takes place in a small number of locations, really just three or four based on my account. This actually ended up working in the film’s favor as with such weird heady concepts being bandied about, being able to focus on them without throwing in too much all at once is probably the best way to introduce this into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Oh, and without spoiling it, the film includes a great interpretation of a classic Marvel character, a perfect visualization of something that was drawn so abstract I would have thought it impossible to realize in live action.
Another thing that really threw me for a loop was just how silly this film was. While the film started with a darker, more somber tone, as Stephen Strange enters the world of magic things got ridiculous incredibly fast. This tonal shift was at first awkward and even off-putting. But as the film went on I started to see exactly what they were going for. Magic is silly inherently. By not only acknowledging how silly, but playing up these qualities, they undercut the criticism that the public at large might bring up.
Not only was it silly but Doctor Strange was actually one of the funniest films to come from Marvel to date. I was actually shocked at just how much I found myself, and the audience, laughing at this film. Not bellyaching type laughter, but just consistently amusing.
Doctor Strange should have been mediocre. It should have been a misstep for Marvel. In some ways it is. Weaker characters than we’re used to, and kind of anticlimactic, though I actually like HOW it’s anticlimactic (you have to watch to understand). The strong visuals and some choice performances, backed with competent filmmaking and decent action, raised this film from being another Incredible Hulk or Thor and is one of the more fun experiences I’ve had from Marvel. Let’s say it falls somewhere in the top half of their catalog but not near the top. Definitely a worthwhile theater experience, and as usual there is a mid and end credit scene, both actually teasing future films rather than just being throwaway jokes, so stick around!
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