"Doctor Strange" review

Entertaining? Very much so. Strange? Not quite.

For better or worse, I feel that just about everything positive and negative about the approach of not Marvel but Disney as a whole to big budget spectacles can be summarized by “Doctor Strange.”

Marvel’s mystical neurosurgeon turned Sorcerer Supreme and magical defender of our realm, played by Benedict Cumberbatch has a bit of a tumultuous publication history in that while his presence and mythos has always served to genuinely enhance the greater mythology of the Marvel Universe, his own high concept abstractness and reliance on metaphysicality in storytelling have left him better suited to specialist supporting roles in events of varying magnitude rather than holding down his own continuous series.

That’s not to say that he is entirely incapable of doing so by any means but with that context in mind it should come as no shocker that the bulk of “Doctor Strange’s” structural stability as a story comes from a tried and true format for character driven origin stories that’s been assembled for nearly 17 years now and borderline perfected for nearly 10 of them.

From MCU entries such as “Iron Man,” to pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe Marvel movies like “Spider-Man,” to DC movies like “Batman Begins,” this format of the hero’s journey to rise to the occasion at the risk of desired comforts has taken hold of the MCU for the obvious reason of “if it ain’t broke, why fix it.”

In creating an empire through the use of shrewd branding regarding quality products in high demand, Marvel has managed to market C-list properties to the masses in a successful way that almost no other studio has managed to do and in doing so have essentially found a way to clean up and gentrify the very concept of risk taking. The massive upside to this is that the public is allowed to see a mainstream “Doctor Strange” film of quality to begin with.

The only downside to this however, is that all gentrification comes with a price. For Marvel, that price would appear to be unique story structure, as the second film under Kevin Feige’s full executive control seems more aimed at making the impact of their formula flaws insignificant than risking the brand’s first legitimately bad movie in an attempt to actually eliminate them.

This is “Doctor Strange” in a nutshell; held back from greatness by a kinetic pace and a lacking memorability in its threat, which is the common downfall of 90% of the MCU’s projects.

With that said, this review has probably sounded rather profoundly negative but I needed to get all of this up front because it’s just about the most significant thing there is to say about the film outside of how much of an outright blast it is to actually sit through.

An extra 20 minutes to sell the length of Stephen Strange’s journey while portraying the evident complexities of the villainous Kaecilius, played excellently by Mads Mikkelsen, would have made for a much more well rounded feature but undermine a formula of quality designed to put the fundamentals on the backburner so that director Scott Derrickson and his cast are freed up to experiment with the bigger ideas that they can bring to the table that the overpopulated landscape of quality superhero films hasn’t offered. Their additions are most welcome.

The A-list cast of “Doctor Strange” brings their A games and then some to a screenplay more focused on highlighting character motive than setting up the fabulously choreographed set pieces that come together organically and are so mindboggling you’ll be immediately convinced that they were not conceived of by sober minds. The “Inception” comparisons don’t do this film justice as it routinely ups the ante put forth by Christopher Nolan in that movie and “Interstellar” combined, tenfold.

The sorcerers of the Marvel Universe fighting to defend their world from invasion by a demonic entity from a realm of darkness routinely twist and warp the laws of physics, time, space, and reality as we know it in all out assaults that can result in anything ranging from a few well placed kicks to the chest to bringing down the weight of an entire city crashing down unto their foes and every second of it is mesmerizing.

All of these sequences which avoid the sin of resolving each other with the same solution are seamlessly weaved into the narrative of a man humbled by the realization that he sought power meant to help people for egotistical purposes and seeks to realize his full potential by ironically letting go of the selfish motivators that drove him in the first place.

Although the default to action genre tropes that drive the effects don’t do much to set “Doctor Strange” apart from the rest of the heard, its masterful technical direction and the coordination of a round of excellent performances of one of the best casts of actors and characters to star in a Marvel film thus far, drive it above and beyond the call of duty while laying a foundation that make it the MCU entry that I most desperately want to see a sequel to above all others.

“Doctor Strange” doesn’t quite stand as uniquely as it wants to conceptually but its execution lands it in the upper echelon of its franchise and even the genre at large, even if only around the outer rim.

8 Mystical Mantras out of 10