dir. by Scott Derrickson
(tl;dr? skip to the end for a few pros and cons)
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is eight years old now, and it's expanded significantly since its debut in 2008 in just about every imaginable way. Films like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War have become sprawling behemoths of a million subplots, the Sokovia Accords have heightened the franchise's thematic ambitions, and the MCU has even lept off the big screen into the realms of Netflix and broadcast television, with cable soon to come. By this point, these movies have developed a recognisable formula, but while Doctor Strange fits all the trappings, it also brings the solid humour, characters, and action which makes these films a hit, and taps into a fresh vein of the source material in the process.
When prestigious neurosurgeon Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) suffers nerve damage in his hands after a traffic accident, he seeks the temple of Kamar-Taj in the Himalayas on the advice of another patient who miraculously recovered from nerve damage in his spine. When he arrives at Kamar-Taj, he finds that those at the temple have mystical powers far beyond his understanding. Eventually he is accepted and trains to become a sorcerer, but during his studies, he soon finds himself in the midst of a conflict which he hadn't signed up for.
As far as Marvel protagonists, go, Strange isn't the most exceptional, falling into the increasingly familiar mould of a wisecracking narcissist which is fast becoming predictable. However, Strange is less akin to Scott Lang than he is to Tony Stark, as his arrogance actually manifests as his major character flaw. About up to the time that he begins training at Kamar-Taj, he's a relatively unsympathetic protagonist, as he has a smug attitude and generally treats those around him poorly. One of the more fun aspects of his character arc is how how he develops a little more humility, shown near the end by him finally allowing one coworker to participate in a surgery. A little less fun is the generic hero's call narrative, which doesn't show its face until over halfway into the second act but which still ultimately does overtake the narrative.
In fact, Doctor Strange makes the Marvel formula clearer than ever, and I was quite literally able to count down the seconds until an expected beat happened. Strange living a normal life until an accident is every bit as par for the course as him coming to accept the call to duty, and while the film is able to flesh out its character relationships a little more by focusing much of the second act on Strange's training, even this part, where our hero must learn the skills which will allow him to defeat the eventual villain, is a recurring trope of these films. As with many of these movies, the third act predictably features the character we've spent the most time with saving the world, and also like many of these movies, the villain whom the world is saved from isn't particularly distinctive and has a bland motive.
One of the reasons why allows the film rises above that is its intriguing mythos. On top of the arcane mysticism which surrounds the titular character and Kamar-Taj, there's mention of a "Dark Dimension," but while this may sound like your typical generic mirror world, it's actually a place where time does not exist, and some of the main villains in the film are a group of zealots who wish to bring the Dark Dimension to Earth so they can be immortal. The philosophical debate behind that is paid lip service for flavour, but isn't fleshed out, and neither these zealots nor the world-conquering Dormammu are particularly interesting or memorable.
Where Doctor Strange really shines, ultimately, is its visuals, which are among the most inventive this franchise has yet offered. Ant-Man's quirky final act and Civil War's stabs at poetry already began to expand the franchise beyond its rudimentary visuals, but Doctor Strange pushes that even further with all sorts of delightful gimmicks. Usually, this is shown through architecture bending in on itself, and while this isn't necessarily the most novel of visual ideas, it complements the action scenes even as the camera swerves and cuts too quickly for most of the details to really sink in. Gravity is altered in nearly every action scene, culminating in a semifinal fight where all of New York City inverts and transforms into a kaleidoscope of shifting, rippling, rotating shapes. This is directly linked to the sorcerers' power, but it's often not entirely clear why the sorcerer feels the need to alter the shape of the architecture at all beyond it looking cool. Still, it does look cool.
More mundane are glowing symbols which sorcerers draw with some sort of mystical energy. Most of the time, this isn't given a particularly clear purpose beyond showing off, but at least one shape - a large sparking circle - serves as a portal through which sorcerers can quickly leap to other places. Exactly what the range of this is isn't clear, but it does look cool. Acton scenes, meanwhile, often take the form of melee fights with CGI weaponry, and as with all of these movies the visual spectacle almost manages to regain the weight of physical weapons. Everything is so stylised that the CGI is rarely conspicuous, although one of the film's most memorable scenes is simply a fistfight fought in incorporeal forms. Sorcerers have the ability to separate their "spirit" from their body, and this form exists on a plane invisible to the human eye. For the fight in question, this means that Strange is able to battle an adversary while floating through objects, all while love interest Christine Palmer operates on him, largely unaware of the battle taking place right on top of her.
Speaking of Palmer, she's unfortunately sidelined for much of the movie, appearing briefly to serve the purposes of the plot and to engage in a particularly brief and underdeveloped romance with Strange. Exactly why all of these movies feel the need to insert a romantic subplot is entirely beyond me, but the remainder of the supporting cast is a lot more interesting, especially Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a character known only as The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). Mordo is strong-willed but unquestioning of authority, and this causes issues when he learns that The Ancient One has been hiding things from him. Meanwhile, Wong (Benedict Wong) is initially charge of Kamar-Taj's library, and provides a lot of the film's typically entertaining comic relief by way of his interactions with Strange. He plays a much less significant role in the overall story, but he's perhaps even more endearing than the more important characters.
Doctor Strange is a typically entertaining entry in the sprawling Marvel franchise, boasting a welcome reduction in scale from the weighty and sprawling Captain America: Civil War while delightfully rising above its formulaic trappings with a witty script and inventive visuals. Perhaps the best Marvel film since Guardians of the Galaxy, it doesn't eclipse its brand name, but it is a lot of fun, and it proves that even as superhero films become more and more familiar, they can still be wildly entertaining.
8/10
+ Filled with the humour and energy expected of Marvel films.
+ Interesting mythos.
+ Delightfully trippy visuals.
- Doesn't stray much from Marvel formula.
- Romantic subplot is underdeveloped.
- Villain is typically unremarkable.
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