Doctor Strange ***½ (2016, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen, Benedict Wong) – Movie Review

There are only half a dozen main characters in Doctor Strange, which means we get to see an awful lot of them. This means rather too much of Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, which he plays exactly like he did Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), except with a cape. Cumberbatch would fit in nicely to a Marvel universe movie where there were lots of other marvellous heroes, but here, good though he is, there is just too much of him and he is just too much.

Talking of too much of a good thing, there is Michael Giacchino’s score and the CGI. Both of them are impressive and exciting, fine pieces of work. But they are also absolutely relentless, overused and hardly ever stop, so that when they do, the film stops along with them.

Now the script. It suffers from the usual problem of films based on a comic book (in this case, writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko’s) of having great difficulty carving out an actual plot. So Doctor Strange is basically just a series of incidents moving chaotically along to a random climax, just like life itself, oddly enough, since comic books are of course in every other way the opposite of real life, a kind of warped mirror image of it.

The script tries to keep real by idiot kidding around like teenage boy speak, which is another odd thing as all the characters are middle aged and played by middle aged actors (several of them British for some reason, possibly the UK filming). The script also tries to keep real by musings about life and death, and time being the main enemy, and all that, which is the kind of concerns you imagine real old folks have, another odd thing in a teen and twenty movie.

Doing the Cumberbatch turn, Cumberbatch may not exactly be a versatile actor, but he does establish his own authority on the movie, which is good, essential in fact as it is entirely his film. It stands or falls with him. I’d rather have had somebody who looks and particularly sounds convincingly American, but Cumberbatch keeps his camp act amusing, a bit arch so as to be fun but not too much to be silly. He knows exactly what he’s doing, unsurprisingly, as he’s done it so many times before.

Luckily there are two or three other actors that get a look in. Happily, one of them is Mads Mikkelsen, my kind of guy as the relentless evil villain Kaecilius. Mads keeps it hard and dangerous. He’s great. Even when he’s got a dumb line to say, Mads keeps it deadly earnest and serious. This pays off big time. On the Hitchcock principle that a film is only as good as its villain, Dr S is indeed great.

Then again we have Tilda Swinton triumphing over her controversial casting as The Ancient One. With her otherworldly alien look and grave, quite authority, she nails it. Her buddies Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong also keep it grave and serious as the Baron Mordo and the servant Wong, both feel just right. That leaves only the lovely Rachel McAdams as Dr S’s love interest and hospital partner Christine Palmer. It’s a fairly rotten role, the worst of the six, but she performs it sweetly and well, doing a bit of twinkling.

Ah, you say, Michael Stuhlbarg and Benjamin Bratt are also aboard as Dr Nicodemus West and Jonathan Pangborn, but I say they have zero to do, mere wallpaper. Shame.

Though there isn’t actually a plot, only a situation, I can talk about the situation. Gifted neurosurgeon Strange has a car crash, followed by a mediocre operation that doesn’t put him back together again properly, he thinks, but then finds some bloke who tells him to head to Hong Kong where some ancient healer will set him on a journey of healing that in fact pulls him into the world of the mystic arts. That’s it! That’s not much for a squillion dollar Marvel movie. So it’s impressive that they can make so much out of it.

The film moves dynamically and entertainingly along, with a few pauses for character development (as arrogant Dr S battles his big fat ego – ‘you have to learn it’s not about you’) and silly jokes and pompous chit chat, taking in much intense sci-fi action and ridiculous mumbo jumbo about mysticism, alternate dimensions, the world that lies beyond, metaphysical abilities and artifacts.

Dr S: ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’  Ancient One: ‘Not everything does. Not everything has to.’ It may be a risky route to go, but that explains everything, that is everything you can’t explain in the script, which is most everything.

If Dr S is personally taken to other worlds, this movie does the same for the audience. It is trippy. It’s basically a Disney ride to other worlds, an alternative universe, ah yes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That’s exactly appropriate as Disney have taken over Marvel.

I surprised myself by laughing a fair lot at the daft jokes. Why is saying ‘Adele’, ‘Bono’ or ‘Beyoncé’ funny? Well, who knows. It kind of is and it isn’t. Why is some bloke having an irritating cape funny? Well, who knows. It kind of is and it isn’t. I’ve been fairly horrible about Benedict Cumberbatch but he does make all this fairly lame stuff work. Even so, I was musing during the movie about how much more I’d have liked the film if Mads had played Dr S and Benedict was the villain. But, hey, that’s just me.

I was also musing how much I’d like to see Deadpool again as a kind of antidote to Doctor Strange. It seems a much more grown-up kind of movie. Deadpool is the non-Disney version of Marvel. Now I wish I’d liked it more.

Will the audience like Doctor Strange? Judging from the adoring crowd at the Odeon, Leicester Square, preview, yes indeed! But this wasn’t a real audience. It was a fan screening audience. They cheered, laughed and clapped at everything, They clapped at the start when the new Marvel logo came on. By the way, what’s happened to the old one? It was perfect.

Stan Lee (1922–2018).

It is written by Scott Derrickson, Jon Spaihts and C Robert Cargill, based on the Marvel comics by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko. Stan Lee has his iconic cameo as Bus Passenger.

It was announced on 12 December 2018 that Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson is to return for a sequel.

Steve Ditko (1927–2018).

Steve Ditko died at his home in New York on 29 June 2018, aged 90.

Stan Lee died on 12 November 2018, aged 95.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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