Doctor Strange Review

Strange Medicine

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief dons his cloak of invisibility, polishes his Eye of Agamotto and checks out Marvel/ Disney’s latest big-screen comic adaptation, Doctor Strange…

Doctor Strange
Director: Scott Derrickson
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejifor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen

After a year that has included Deadpool, Captain America: Civil War and X-Men: Apocalypse, with mixed box office results, Marvel rounds out the year with Doctor Strange. We have Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular doctor, a cold, arrogant surgeon who finds his life turned upside down when he has a serious car crash. His injuries are so severe that he is unable to practice medicine and so he leaves his old life behind and his girlfriend of sorts, fellow doctor Christine Palmer (McAdams) to find a new meaning to his existence in Kathmandu in Nepal. Here he is taken under the wing of The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) who shows him that he has untapped magical powers. Ejiofor plays Mordo, a colleague and fellow teacher of The Ancient One. It turns out that The Ancient One once had a student, Kaecillius (Mikkelsen), who has gone full Anakin Skywalker and has switched his allegiances to Dormammu, who offers him a dark power that he is unable to resist. So of course Doctor Stephen Strange is pitted against The Ancient One’s former pupil with the assistance of fellow magical tutor Wong (Benedict Wong) and Mordo.

Doctor Strange is a very odd film: it was never going to suit the widescreen superheroics of other Marvel movies like Civil War or Avengers: Age of Ultron. So Derrickson has gone for a lighter tone with more of an adventure feel to proceedings. It was an impossible ask to replicate the sometimes very trippy Marvel comic but it does manage to feel a little subversive at times. Cumberbatch as Strange isn’t bad at all: the detachment he possesses as an actor serves him well here and by the time he dons the red cape, you have to admit that he does look the part. And there are some moments here that make you smile like when he first puts on the cape, in a scene that is a little reminiscent of Disney’s Fantasia. But his coldness is a double- edged sword: at his heart, the character is inscrutable but it means that there is a lack of chemistry between him and Palmer. The rest of the cast are serviceable enough with Mikkelsen as the villain of the piece. chewing the scenery with his usual style and panache, and Swinton looking suitably odd as The Ancient One.

The visual effects are very impressive indeed and for once, it is a blockbuster movie that warrants the 3D treatment. Doctor Strange isn’t a bad end to the year for Marvel movies as it does possess some nifty visual flourishes like Strange’s battles with Kaecillius, where New York seems to be turned upside down, and Cumberbatch is better than I was expecting him to be. It doesn’t all quite fit together as its massive conclusion does feel a little bit of an anticlimax. However the post-credits sequences (which I won’t blow here) do allude to future adventures with Doctor Strange and some of the other cast. So Doctor Strange is a likeable if flawed autumn blockbuster with some clever touches, a few decent performances and also because it is under two hours, it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Derrickson has created something to build on here and the viewer does get a diverting adventure for two hours on screen. Sometimes this is enough.

JOEL MEADOWS

Doctor Strange is on at UK cinemas now and hits US cinemas on 5 November.