Movie Review: Doctor Strange

The Marvel Universe has released its latest comic to movie superhero in Doctor Stephen Strange. Marvel has certainly developed a winning structure for action movies and while Doctor Strange may not be a high point in the Marvel Universe it was still an entertaining installment.

The biggest problem is the first third of the movie, where noted neurosurgeon Doctor Strange has a car accident, injuring his lifesaving hands. Abandoning western medicine he seeks a cure in eastern mysticism, becoming a super magician, and learning the truth about himself in the process

What we get is simply trite. We’ve seen all this before and the comparisons to other movies are so easy to make. I’ll use Star Wars as an example. Tilda Swinton is the Yoda character, Chiwetel Ejiotor and Benedict Wong share the Obi Wan duties while Benedict Cumberbatch is of course Luke Skywalker. There are scenes of Luke…er, Stephen in training along with the required ‘wise’ sayings stressing how no sense makes sense.

As you can tell from the cast the acting is excellent, only Mads Mikkelsen in the Darth Vader role is unconvincing, and to be honest he has very little to work with aside from just being the baddie. The special effects are also high quality. The bending of reality does manage to generate a genuine feeling of vertigo.

The film picks up a bit of steam when Strange’s artifact finds him. A mage doesn’t find his artifact, it finds him. Again, that’s a little trite. I won’t give away the ending except to say it was the best part of the film with Strange being clever in defeating his foe rather than just another fight scene.

I’m not saying Doctor Strange was a bad film, it just needed a good bit more care in the early part of the script. If you’re looking for something thought provoking, or even just clever plot twists you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re just looking for an enjoyable night’s entertainment Doctor Strange will do the trick.

Oh, and one last thing. Since Doctor Strange will be an integral part of the Marvel Universe, ya kinda have to see this this movie in order to keep up with what’s going on in the rest of MU. Clever boys there at Marvel aren’t they.

P.S. Monday night, 14Nov16, the National Geographic channel will debut the first installment of its six part miniseries ‘Mars’. You can bet I’ll be watching, and posting!