Doctor Strange Review

Magic has come to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Guardians of the Galaxy brought in the cosmic aspect of the Marvel comics, but where that movie used inventive and surprising casting to bring life to its standard plot line, Doctor Strange  is bogged down by the utter predictability of its storytelling.

We meet Dr. Stephen Strange at the height of his life; performing routine miracle surgeries, respected, rich, and totally aware of the magnificence that is him.  That is, until a car crash destroys his hands, robing him of the very thing that made him the man he was.  Broken, beaten, and crushed under the weight of so many failed surgeries to restore his hands, he finds his way to Nepal and joins a sorcerer's club where he learns magic and the true nature of the universe(s).

The sad thing is that you know exactly how the movie will play out within the first five minutes.  Haughty, prideful hero is crippled and humbled, said haughty hero finds new thing which he initially sucks at but quickly masters, wise, magnanimous mentor turns out to be not so wise or pure, best friend/sub-mentor begins the road to evil and enmity, great and terrible forces threaten existence but are repelled in the end with tactics haughty hero incorporates after lessons in humility, the end.  The casting is as boring as the plot; Cumberbatch adds materialism and an American accent to his Sherlock ticks, Tilda Swinton and Mads Mikkelson pull off their roles as the sage mentor and  evil harbinger just by showing up and speaking into the camera.  There's no real shading or depth of character here except for Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo, who gets some actual motivation for his eventual break from the hero's path instead of the usual mustache-twirling evil that makes up the entirety of his characterization in the comics.  That they didn't waste an actor of Ejiofor's caliber is pretty much the only good thing I can say about how this movie's writing.

Which is a shame, because the hollowness of the story and characters neuters the actually pretty amazing visual tapestry the movie plays out on.  The magical constructs all feel like real-world objects, and watching people battle it out on warped, bent over backwards buildings that constantly alter perspective is a marvel (sorry) to take in.  The highlight is an astral projection fight between Strange and a Monk of Evil in a hospital, which has some of the most fluid and impressive lighting and effects work I've seen in a movie in a long time.

It's just too bad that no one thought to apply that same sense of dazzling, no-holds-barred attitude to literally any other aspect of this movie.

Grade: B-