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 The
paradox of contemporary Hollywood blockbusters is that in our time virtually
anything conceivable, no matter how wild and out there, can be put on the
screen, but it almost never is. Theater attendance continues to decline, partly
because 50-inch flatscreen TVs and digital streaming have made the theatrical
experience less and less indispensable, but also because the actual visuals
Hollywood puts on the big screen these days seldom demand to be seen there, or
at all. CGI battle scenes, urban destruction, giant spaceships, ugly CGI aliens
and other familiar creatures, urban car chases, grungy medieval-type worlds and
super powered slugfests — we’ve seen all this before. How many action
blockbusters show us something really different?
Some.
Mad Max: Fury Road.
Inception.
But they’re few and far between.
Scott Derrickson’s ( 2005's The Excorcism of Emily Rose) Doctor Strange,
starring Benedict Cumberbatch (2013's
Star Trek Into Darkness) as Marvel’s sorcerer
supreme, is a rare action blockbuster — and an even rarer superhero movie — that
really ought to be experienced, not only on the big screen, but in 3-D — and if
possible in IMAX. I’m not generally a fan of live-action 3-D (animation is
another story), but this is an exception. For once, the spectacle in a superhero
movie is actually spectacular — and not like anything we’ve ever seen.
Yes, you may be reminded of
Inception and The Matrix, among others — and
not just because
of the urban landscape-bending effects of the one or the
gravity-defying stunts in both. (Films I was fleetingly reminded of include
Gravity and
Interstellar) But
Inception
used its most dazzling
effects purely for a training-sequence wow factor. In Doctor Strange, up and
down are relative, fluid concepts in ways that are entirely practical and
tactical when sorcerous adepts square off against one another. And it’s not just
up and down — everything is fluid. Architecture doesn’t just fold and bend, it
flows and reconfigures itself in kaleidoscopic, iterative patterns. In a trippy
mind-expanding early sequence, parts of the protagonist’s body, most memorably
his fingers, are warped in fractal-like ways.
There’s an action scene that’s like that dream where something is chasing you,
but no matter how hard you run you can’t get anywhere. There’s a
computer-animated character (you have to call it a character) that’s a kind of
descendant of Disney’s very first computer-animated character, Aladdin’s Magic
Carpet. In the very end, there’s a loopy sequence in which time is flowing in
two directions at once.
If it were only fun and weird to look at, Doctor Strange would still be worth
catching in theaters. In fact, it’s one of the most satisfying Marvel movies and
the best Marvel origin story since the original
Iron Man. Perhaps we might say simply that
Derrickson has made a bona fide movie at a time when Marvel is only doing
installments.
The origin story beats are familiar, of course. Cumberbatch plays Dr. Stephen
Strange, a
brilliant, self-important neurosurgeon whose career is derailed when his body is
shattered in a car accident on the Jersey side of the Hudson Valley, within
sight of the George Washington Bridge. After exhausting his medical options and
his bank account, Strange winds up in Nepal, in Kathmandu, where he
uncomfortably eyes hucksterish signs like “Holy Tours: Himalayan Healing.” But
he has reason to believe that medical miracles happen here, and, eventually, he
comes face-to-face with Tilda Swinton (2014's The Grand Budapest Hotel) in the
Morpheus role of bald-headed mentor into the world of mind-bending realities and
transcendental superpowers.
Cumberbatch is so ideally cast that he could phone it in and he’d be fine, but
Swinton, who is playing an iconoclastic reinterpretation of an archetypal figure
literally called the “Ancient One,” comes up with an utterly fresh, offbeat take
on the mentor role. She wears her authority lightly, playing the part with a
literal wink that doesn’t in the least dissipate the otherworldly aura that
Swinton seems to possess anyway.
The rest of the movie is as well cast. Chiwetel Ejiofor (2015's
The Martian) brings his customary conviction to a dedicated disciple
of the Ancient One named Karl Mordo. Benedict Wong ( 2012's
Prometheus) plays a character also named Wong,
here reimagined not as Dr. Strange’s valet and sidekick, but as his peer and
tutor.
Although the mystical language is occasionally that of esoterica or occultism —
notably in connection with astral projection — there appears to be a more
fundamental sensibility in Swinton’s critique of Strange’s rationalistic,
materialistic worldview. “You’re looking at the world through a keyhole,” she
tells him. “You think you know how the world works; you think this material
universe is all there is.”
Strange isn’t buying it. “There is no such thing as spirit!” he snaps. “We are
made of matter and nothing more. You’re just another tiny, momentary speck
within an indifferent universe.” Later these words come back to him in an
uncomfortable way from an unexpected source.
Where the film stumbles is with its villain du jour, a renegade sorcerer named
Kaecilius,
played by Mads Mikkelsen (2006's
Casino Royale). Indeed, this has been the
Marvel movie problem for a long time now. Once you get past Loki, the antagonist
well dries up. Here, Mikkelsen fans may be disappointed that Kaecilius isn’t a
better-developed character, but possibly saving the better villain for another
movie is the right call (no spoilers from me).
On the other hand, the film does briefly throw in possibly the ultimate Dr.
Strange antagonist, the malevolent entity Dormammu, who inhabits a realm called
the Dark Dimension. (Dormammu is described here as having “infinite power,”
though by the end it’s obvious this isn’t literally true.) This is perhaps a
mistake, although the way Dr. Strange deals with Dormammu is certainly creative.
Certainly I appreciate the fact that Doctor Strange doesn’t come down to
slugfests and explosions and doesn’t end with the usual superhero-movie urban
destruction — or, rather, that it finds a solution to that pitfall that is
unique, to say the least.
I’m intrigued by Doctor Strange’s moral gray areas; my main concern here is that
future installments may not get it right. If Dr. Strange, as an established
hero, goes on to “break the rules for the greater good” in the way most
crucially contested here, this will have to be clearly seen, like Tony Stark
creating Ultron, as a bad mistake.
That’s certainly possible, because, like most Marvel origin stories, Doctor
Strange is
structured as a redemption story, with an egocentric protagonist who
needs to save himself before he can save anyone else. Stephen Strange isn’t as
entertainingly voluble in his venality as Tony Stark, but then part of the charm
of his character is that he’s an even bigger deal in his own mind than he is in
other people’s.
An early medical sequence establishes many things at once: Strange’s brilliance
and arrogance, his cruelty and aloofness (watch the brief dialogue-free shot in
which he meets a grateful family member’s embrace with a side hug), his precise,
steady hands. Rachel McAdams (2015's
Spotlight) does what she can in these scenes
with the underwritten part of Strange’s medical peer and sometimes love
interest, Christine Palmer. (Will Marvel never again manage a love interest to
match Pepper Potts?)
As our hero progresses in his mastery of the mystic arts, it’s unclear for some
time how much moral progress he’s making, if any. Long after he has learned
advanced sorcerous techniques, one lesson continues to elude him: “It’s not
about you.”
I almost wish Doctor Strange existed in its own universe and didn’t have to be
absorbed into the MCU juggernaut. I think I sighed aloud at the end when a
character finally uttered an inevitable phrase tying the film into the upcoming
Infinity War arc.
It’s true that the weirdness that comes with Dr. Strange territory could liven
up the next multi-character Marvel extravaganza — Thor: Ragnarok, to be specific
— but by the same token, the sameness of standard Marvel product will surely
dilute what is so much fun about this stand-alone movie. I’d rather have another
Doctor Strange movie as self-contained as this one, with a beginning, middle and
end.
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