Doctor Strange (2016)

Directed by Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister)

Written by Scott Derrickson, Jon Spaihts (Prometheus), & C. Robert Cargill (Sinister as well)

Doctor Strange is a weird movie. I mean that in both a good way and a bad way. I cannot for the life of me figure out why they gave this movie to Scott Derrickson. In many cases, we see comics companies scooping really promising indie directors out of obscurity and giving them the budget and property to really go wild (see James Gunn or, later, Taika Waititi). This would seem to be the case with Derrickson, but all he ever directed was a couple of pretty mediocre sci-fi and horror movies. I love horror, and I’m all for small-scale horror directors getting big studio paydays (James Wan’s Aquaman was great fun), but it doesn’t really work here. While the movie definitely does some big concept things right, the screenplay and scene-to-scene execution of it fall short. The story concerns Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), a brilliant neurosurgeon and completely unlikable monster of a human being, whose ability to perform surgery is destroyed by a debilitating car wreck. Unwilling to give up on restoring the use of his hands, he ends up in the Far East, studying under the teachings of the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) for an interminable amount of screentime in which we learn basically nothing about his character. At the same time, another rogue pupil of the Ancient One’s school, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), has stolen some of the school’s teachings and plans to contact an extradimensional being called Dormammu to gain eternal life. Strange must learn to master his inherent ability in the Mystic Arts and team up with Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Wong (Benedict Wong) to stop the madman before he destroys the world.

It’s hard to tell a good origin story. The amount of exposition needed, the time it takes to set everything up, and the need to still have a convincing conflict for the final battle is a lot to place on any movie maker. This movie makes an earnest attempt to do it all, but the balancing act proves a bit too much for it. Let’s start with the problems. The first one is Benedict Cumberbatch, who I like but who has very limited range. His American accent makes him sound like he constantly has two to ten marbles in his mouth while speaking, and it makes me wonder why he couldn’t just be British. It would have had no impact whatsoever on the story. In addition, he is so profoundly unpleasant that it is nearly impossible to sympathize with him. He is a smarmy, self-important, emotionally abusive, narcissistic jerk, and the MCU already has Tony stark, so he just attempts to do all of that stuff even bigger. This works out terribly. I found myself rooting for him to fail, and when it was hinted that his romantic interest might actually work out, I was just disgusted. You need to either have your lead be slightly less monstrous, or have him be even further humbled than this movie does. He never feels like he learns a lesson, never feels like he has to grow in any meaningful way. He’s just given pretty much whatever he wants, and that will always rub me the wrong way in a movie. It’s the same old Amazing Spider-Man problem. The text tells me he learns a lesson, but I don’t see it.

On top of that, the ostensible villain for 95% of the runtime is boring as toast. I don’t see how you cast someone as magnificent as Mads Mikkelsen and then have him do basically nothing except run weirdly and glower in bizarre eye makeup for the entire movie. It’s such a waste. His work on Hannibal is some of the best acting of the entire so-called Golden Age of Television we’re living in now, but he’s one of the least-memorable villains in the entire MCU catalogue (and that’s saying something). The movie might seem hopeless with both the hero and villain written off, but it’s not a total catastrophe. The side characters are where this movie shines. Tilda Swinton is as amazing (and weird) as she always is as the Ancient One. I have absolutely no desire to get into the politics of casting a white woman in a traditionally male Asian role, as I am pretty much none of the concerned parties in that particular dust-up. Regardless of whether she was the right person to cast, she does a great job with her trademark bizarre affectation. Ejiofor is also amazing as a stealth origin story for a cool villain as well. I’m pretty sure this is the only MCU movie that gives us a hero character for an entire movie who will later become a villain. I’ve been a big fan of Ejiofor ever since seeing him as a sympathetic villain in 2005’s Serenity, and he does great work here. Wong, similarly, is a fun if slight side character with a couple of great jokes in the movie. He’s an ideal sidekick-type. Rachel McAdams even does the best she can with a terribly written character, managing a couple of good humorous moments in an otherwise boring girlfriend role.

And then there’s the visuals. If there’s one front upon which the movie does a pretty impressive job it’s the trippy visuals that feature pretty heavily throughout. The fractal imagery of magic being worked upon the world is cool, Strange’s crazy astral projection fights, the big mind-expanding trip Strange goes on when he first meets the Ancient One, they all work pretty well. One of them is even really cool conceptually: the final fight where they must move forward while time is moving backwards is really interesting. The idea of using the restoration as a fighting technique is really cool, like when they trap the baddie in a wall that is reconstructing itself. It’s visually interesting, and technically impressive where most of the others are only (admittedly cool) window dressing. In addition, this movie also sports one of the only non-combat endings of any MCU film (along with Guardians 1). It’s a creative bit of trickery that saves the day as opposed to any kind of brute force, and I feel that’s particularly apropos for a movie about sly magicks. Ultimately, Doctor Strange is fine, but it should have been much more than that. There are some really cool highs, but at least as many boring lows or missed opportunities. It’s the kind of movie that leaves me excited for the next one because of the potential of the franchise, but mildly disappointed in the movie I just watched because of the places it could have been better. The very definition of a ‘middle of the road’ movie.

Overall:

Stray Thoughts:

• The Cape of Levitation may be the best character in this movie. It’s adorable, and I love it.
• This movie definitely has any number of racial problems in its casting and execution. I don’t know that there was any way to do it that wouldn’t create some problems, but this is probably not the best solution they could have come up with.
• The text of my review has exactly 1111 words, and is part of an incantation to bring the Marvel Universe into reality.
• This movie has serious tone problems. It whiplashes between grim violence and weird humor at an alarming and not endearing rate.
• Strange never really seems good at anything until the very end of the movie when he suddenly is with no clear transition. He’s a difficult character to do an origin for because he has so much knowledge, but they could have done better.
• The fractal baby hands are great. Nice and creepy.
• The soundtrack, especially before the supernatural stuff hits, is bizarre and awkward.
• Being defibrillated supercharging your chi or whatever is dumb. Like, spectacularly dumb. And not in a good way.
• Post Credits scene 1: Good joke, but not a very important scene, and ultimately having almost nothing to do with the actual plot of Ragnarok. Not great.
• Post Credits scene 2: Maybe my favorite post credits scene, actually (although I am an admitted Ejiofor fanboy), because it confirms a really interesting element of this movie’s probable sequel.
• Stan Lee cameo: A nice, if slight joke. Cute, but not one of the most memorable.