Dimension bending fun
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| Cumberbatch and Swinton are outstanding in portraying their respective characters |
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has gone a long way from the very first Iron Man in 2008. Particularly with the Avengers (2012), the studio played a big role in increasing the audience's appetite for funny, highly entertaining, city-destroying popcorn cinema. So, many more studios started churning out numerous unsuccessful films, in which the big American heroes saved the world with their supernatural powers, while the baddies were hell bent on destroying American cities. It seemed like most of the villains hated America - too much of ISIS ideology I presume.
Now since this entire genre has certainly reached its saturation point with recent disasters like Suicide Squad, Marvel has played safe by inducting an unlikely hero in its universe - Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), a narcissist, egoistic neurosurgeon, who becomes a sorcerer and saves the day by fighting evil sorcerer/demon and his goons. He saves, if my count is right, Kathmandu, London, New York and Hong Kong. Thankfully, its not just America this time.
Before that, of course, there is an exposition heavy first half, in which Dr. Strange meets a car crash and ends up semi-paralytic. When every medical solution defeats him, he visits Kathmandu, to a place called Kamar-Taj - a rumored monastery where a mystical group cures patients who are medically untreatable. There, he meets Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), a bald woman with psychic and magical powers who helps him to find his inner psychic strength. She also reveals the hidden knowledge of multi-dimensional universe and invisible energies to him. We have two more named characters residing and practicing in Kamar-Taj, one is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and other by Benedict Wong. The former is more of a filler character and the later fulfills the comic needs (in a good way). The main human villain Kaecilius is played by Madds Mikkelsen. He, apart from being bad, wears quite a fancy eye makeup. And yes, we have a Rachel McAdams sleepwalking, showing up here and there during the entire run time.
The most wondrous parts of Doctor Strange are those in which he learns and Ancient One practices the art of sorcery. It is an immense fun to see skeptical Cumberbatch brow-beaten and utterly wowed with the dimension-bending and world-twirling kaleidoscopic magic which Swinton conjures. He gasps, becomes breathless and wide-eyed - and we, the audience do the same by marveling at the phenomenal display of technical wizardry. Another highlight of the film is Inception-esque set piece where New York is literally turned upside down - the buildings are flipped to 180 degrees, floors become ceilings and vice-verse, the gravity starts to shift dynamically; the entire sequence, although lacking novelty, is a standout in terms of visual effects and action choreography.
Doctor Strange, however, suffers from an utterly conventional script and thinly developed characters. With possible exception of Strange himself and Swinton's magical sorceress, most of them are just there to fill empty portion in the script and perhaps to increase runtime. And some don't even do that. The logical explanation of how stuff works in Doctor Strange is murky and much of it is without any clarity. The film's climax, with all of its infrastructure demolishing buildup, is uniquely strange and even funny- "Dormammu, I have come for a bargain."
The film is indeed funny. Many of the dialogues and situations are highly comical; director Scott Dirreckson has kept the tone of the film light and fluffy. The good thing about MCU films is that they never are too grim - even though every standing structure of the city is taken down to the ground, nobody loses a limb. Deaths, if they ever occur, are pretty toned down and everyone ends up happy. Doctor Strange follows the same route - it is light, funny, enjoyable and visually arresting. Only if the script was a bit more powerful than the VFX sparks produced by Doctor Strange's weapon.
3.5/5
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