Caught the early Thursday night showing of the Marvel Cinematic Universes’s latest superhero flick Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange is a character I know little about and I gather he’s kind of a B or C lister in the books but he’s made a pretty A list movie. Fair warning (but not really…) this is one of the more mythology-heavy Marvel movies and I felt that someone steeped in this character would get a LOT more out of it… but the movie was well-written and well-acted enough that it didn’t hurt a neophyte’s enjoyment of it.
Now, Dr. Strange is a wizard, a sorcerer and, except for Thor which was explained away as science and a little of Ant-Man, that’s new to these movies. They do a little hand-waving (literally) to explain it away using multiverse theory but its basically magic. Which begs the question of whether or not a wizard is a superhero. I guess if he’s in the same New York as the Avengers (and in the comics) he is.
It works, in part, due to solid writing though not a particularly inventive plot. Guess what, guys. There’s a bad guy who wants to end the world and he doesn’t get much screen time. Can our much more interesting newbie hero stop him in time? Sure, of course he can… though he just has to learn the ropes because this is an origin story.
Stephen Strange, brilliant neurosurgeon, gets into a terrible accident and ruins his perfect hands. He heads to Kathmandu (complete with delayed Bob Seger reference which I appreciated) to seek a rumored cure. He winds up running into a bunch of wizard monks but Strange doesn’t believe in magic… until its explained and demonstrated in some trippy and inventive visuals.
The visuals in the trailer – the bending, warping city that reminds everyone of Inception – are not the only – or even the most – trippy visuals the movie has for us. But even when its warping NYC and flipping gravity on its head and reminding us of Inception, it’s Inception turned up to eleven. They have thrown every dollar at the visuals and it shows. It’s all very impressive and much more complex and active than what they did in Inception.
Benedict Cumberbatch plays Dr. Strange and he’s really good. He’s put on an American accent that never seemed to waver and he brought a level of gravitas, pathos, and humor to a character who would otherwise just be a conceited jerk (and he does it in a way that’s very unlike Robert Downy Jr. in Iron Man). I was really impressed by Cumberbatch in a way I never have been before – he made me stop thinking I was watching Cumberatch and made me think I was watching Dr. Strange.
Other actors were fine to good. Rachel McAdams doesn’t get enough to do as the not-quite-love-interest surgeon – she’s at her best when Strange stops being the audience surrogate for all this weirdness and she becomes it. It’s actually a nice turn for the movie… but too bad she’s not in the movie much. Same with Mads Mikkelson as the villain who isn’t that far away from the yawn-inducing evil elf in Thor 2. They need to work on these baddies.
So yeah, there’s not a lot bad to say about this movie. It’s a really solid action flick that introduces a new character they can merge with other Marvel characters in a future movie. The acting is solid, the writing is good enough even if the overall story is kind of run-of-the-mill (especially for these Marvel flicks). It’s visually stellar. I’d recommend it to Marvel fans (who are gonna see it anyway), Harry Potter fans (because wizards), and anyone who might be leery of dudes and dudettes in spandex fighting bad guys. Because wizards are and are not superheros.
Score: 86