This review contains SPOILERS. Seriously, I pretty much spoil the whole plot.
Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a New York-based neurosurgeon - not the singer from 80’s New Romantic band Visage - with ego issues who gets his hands severely broken in a car accident. After several operations fail to fully repair his mitts, Strange seeks other options and learns of Kamar-Taj, a place of spiritual healing. Travelling to Kathmandu to find it, he is introduced to a mystical reality he never believed existed by the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and her assistant, Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Soon, he meets Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen, playing another villain with eye trauma, after Le Chiffre in Casino Royale), an ex Kamar-Taj student with an even bigger ego than Strange’s and a deadly plan to match. It’s up to Strange and his friends to stop Kaecilius before he alters reality forever.
An article about this film on Christian media watch website, Movieguide, called it a ‘dangerous introduction to the occult’ in its depiction of ’false spiritual notions’, citing the biblical values Movieguide seeks to promote as ‘truth, love, compassion, sacrifice, justice, and forgiveness’, most, if not all, of which are present in Doctor Strange. The film’s director and co-writer, Scott Derrickson, is himself a Christian, so it’s unlikely that he would present a worldview that contradicts his own. In order to progress in his sorcerer training, Strange must learn humility. How more Christian a central message can you get than, ‘it’s not about you’?
The only danger for me in watching films like Doctor Strange is that I have had issues with certain reality-bending films before. I was really shaken by a scene in The Matrix when Neo (Keanu Reeves) wakes up from the illusion of virtual reality in his real-world battery pod. Not everyone has this sort of sensitivity and some may view at it as being overly so, or maybe a little crazy and perhaps I am - I like to see it as a vivid imagination but I have to be careful what I let into my head.
Thankfully, in Doctor Strange, there was nothing in all in its architecture-rebuilding, wall-walking, spell-casting, astral projecting, time warping, dimension-traversing antics that either threatened my own sanity or faith. The most disturbing images in the film were realistic portrayals of serious hand and back injuries that (mostly) have nothing to do with magic. The fact that I’d seen versions of a lot of the film’s concepts before probably helped. There are whole cities bending in on themselves in Inception (although there’s more intricate window, brick and tile movement in Doctor Strange), wild space travel in 2001 and Interstellar (Christopher Nolan’s work is very influential, here), David Bowie walking around gravity-defying Escher-like structures in Labyrinth; whereas The Mighty Boosh, Cyriak’s surreal videos and U2’s video for Even Better Than The Real Thing depict fractal infinities of the kind we see during a sequence where Strange tumbles through the astral plane. Events also get rather timey-wimey, as per Doctor Who and the ending of 1978’s Superman: The Movie, albeit by a different method.
Doctor Strange is visually audacious for a superhero film and it’s all done beautifully. I was ‘struck’ by a scene where reality slows around two characters talking in their astral forms. There’s a storm and lightening strikes crawl gracefully across the sky beyond the pair as they talk. It’s a simpler effect than entire cities being reordered but that’s part of its beauty.
The effects blend well with the story, rather than the latter being a showcase for the former. However, whilst engrossing, the narrative is pretty much the same as that of The Shadow (1994), where Alec Baldwin plays the arrogant American humbled and taught superpowers by an Eastern mystic, who is killed by a former pupil gone bad. Baldwin must then use his powers to stop his evil fellow pupil’s world-threatening plan. Batman Begins (Nolan again) had a similar story, too but Doctor Strange far outranks the former and is arguably better than the latter. The climax of Doctor Strange, whilst exciting, is still the same as most other Marvel entries. Our heroes must prevent an otherworldly force attacking a major city. Even with added wibbly-wobbly, it’s still essentially the same thing.
As usual with Marvel, we get the obligatory end credits scenes. One features Strange talking to an Avenger that is sadly not Tony Stark, who is, of course, played by Benedict Cumberbatch’s fellow Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Jr. Perhaps having Rachel McAdams, who played Irene Adler in Downey’s first Sherlock Holmes film, also play Strange’s ex-lover Christine Palmer in this film, was enough. Nor does Strange meet Everett K. Ross , played by Martin Freeman, Sherlock’s John Watson, in Captain America: Civil War. Maybe breaking the fourth wall like this is traversing one dimension too far? This happened to a lesser extent, at one point, when Strange says ‘yep’ in that elongated way in which Cumberbatch also utters it as Sherlock.
Thanks to writers Jon Spaihts (great to see you back after Damon Lindelof ruined your Prometheus script, Jon) Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, Doctor Strange is also very witty, which helps make one of Marvel’s more outlandish characters (which is saying something) more grounded. ‘Try me, Beyonce!’ is possibly the best line in the film. Strange says it to Kamar-Taj librarian Wong (played by Cumberbatch’s fellow Benedict, Benedict Wong, who was surely cast on more of a basis than his last name being the same as his character’s?) whose single moniker causes the good Doctor some amusement. Wong clearly spends too much time amongst his books and this magical library does not have a popular music section, not even when there’s magical music videos like Even Better Than The Real Thing; so he’s never heard of Adele, Beyonce, or even Bono (it’s odd hearing those names in a superhero film. I suppose its grounding it in ‘reality’). Strange soon educates Wong, though, allowing himself to sneak books out whilst Wong is distracted. Of all the characters, Tilda Swinton’s Ancient One was the most intriguing. Where did she get her head scars? Was she, like Strange, also inducted into the mystic arts through searching for physical healing?
Doctor Strange is bold for a Marvel movie, visually, if not narratively. Consistently good performances, writing, effects and music helps create a fun film that makes a potentially daft character believable.
Images courtesy of IMDb and C. Scott Cargill's Twitter. Thanks, C.
