Doctor Strange (2016)

At a point when Marvel films had already ranged across the realms of outer space and cutting-edge technology, Doctor Strange plays an entirely different card: magic. Folding dimensions, reversing time, and twisting the physical laws of reality, this work wears the form of a superhero film, but what fills its interior is Eastern mysticism and hallucinatory visual experiment. This initiation tale, in which an arrogant genius loses everything and opens his eyes to a new world, adds a fresh grain to the familiar hero narrative. My rating is ★4.0.

What it’s about — A genius who loses his hands and is initiated into magic

Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a neurosurgeon as full of conceit as he is of skill. But in a single car accident the nerves in both his hands are ruined, and unable to operate any longer, he loses everything. When modern medicine gives up on him, Strange chases his last hope to Kamar-Taj in Nepal. There he meets the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and learns the secret arts of handling magic and dimensions. Meanwhile Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), who once received the same teaching, reaches out to a dark dimension and threatens the world, and Strange finds himself standing in the very midst of that battle regardless of his own will.

Direction — A Mirror Dimension that folds the city like a kaleidoscope

This film’s greatest spectacle is, without question, the visual effects. The city folds and rotates like a kaleidoscope, and buildings and roads endlessly rearrange themselves in defiance of gravity. The characters run and fight atop it, and this space, where the sense of up and down has collapsed, conjures the hallucination of strolling through a dream. The chase unfolding on this stage, called the Mirror Dimension, was an attempt that raised the visual imagination of superhero films of the time a step higher.

The direction is especially clever in how it handles the ending. Instead of the usual climax of beating down a huge enemy by force, Strange resolves the crisis with wit, using a loop of time. This ending, decided by the head rather than the fist, adds a small variation to the Marvel formula. That said, it is a shame that the character’s growth is compressed somewhat quickly and the villain’s motive is not drawn persuasively enough. Even so, as an initiation piece introducing a new world, it is clean and free of clutter.

Performance — Cumberbatch moving between arrogance and desperation

Benedict Cumberbatch is the actor who fits the figure of Strange exactly. He moves deftly between sharp intellect and sarcasm and the desperation after his collapse. This familiar arc, of an arrogant genius learning humility, Cumberbatch carries along without tedium through his characteristic charisma. Tilda Swinton grants the Ancient One, who sidesteps conventions of gender and race, a mysterious androgynous grace, and Mads Mikkelsen makes a somewhat flat villain dimensional through his presence alone. Mordo, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, holds a strange tension that makes one anticipate the story to come.

What the film says — A world visible only when you let go of control

The core of Doctor Strange lies in letting go of an obsession with control. Strange believed he could rule everything with his own ability and his own hands, but only after losing those hands does he accept that a larger world exists. The process of learning magic is itself a discipline in setting down the ego, and the scene at the ending where he negotiates with the enemy while accepting endless death compresses self-sacrifice, the essence of a hero. How a human matures before what cannot be controlled, the film hides that question behind its dazzling magic.

Ratings & reception

The IMDb rating is 7.5 out of 10, earning decent support even among Marvel’s solo hero films. The Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer is 89 percent and the Metacritic score is 72 out of 100. Critics praised in one voice the original visual effects and Cumberbatch’s performance, while pointing to the familiar frame of the origin narrative and the weak villain as limitations. Its visual achievement at least was highly regarded without dispute, earning it a nomination for the Academy Award for visual effects that year.

Verdict

Doctor Strange is a film that opens the door into a new world. The weaknesses of the origin narrative’s familiarity and a flat villain are clear, but the hallucinatory imagery that folds dimensions and twists time is worth enough in itself. The meeting of the actor Cumberbatch and the character is also perfectly apt. Highly valuing the freshness of an attempt that coats the Marvel universe in the new color of magic, I give it ★4.0.

Recommended for

• Those who enjoy original visual effects that twist dimensions and time
• Anyone who wants to be initiated into the magic realm of the Marvel universe
• Those who want to see Benedict Cumberbatch’s charismatic performance