Marvel Introduces the Mystical Arts in ‘Doctor Strange’

Alex Welch

The latest outing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Doctor Strange,” gives audiences a film that looks unlike anything else they’ve seen. But it also at times feels too much like other superhero origin stories that have come before.

Starting off with an exhilarating prologue sequence, the film introduces us to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange, a renowned neurosurgeon, as he’s in the midst of completing yet another flawless surgery. The film’s script does an efficient job at establishing Strange to be the arrogant and materialistic surgeon that comic book fans knew he once was, including establishing relationship between himself and Rachel McAdams’ Christine Palmer, an ER nurse who had a fling with him previously.

Then of course, as all superhero origin stories go, everything in Strange’s world is turned upside down when he’s involved in a car accident that leaves him unable to perform surgery ever again. What follows is an expedited rehabilitation period for Strange as he takes part in increasingly more experimental procedures to try and bring his hands back to their former glory. Finally he visits Kamar-Taj in Nepal, the home of a mystic named The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who offers to teach Strange in the mystical arts, with the promise that through training and practice he’ll one day be able to save lives again.

From there, “Doctor Strange” really starts to take off, beginning with Strange’s first taste of the multiverse and the mystical arts that can be called nothing short of one of the greatest visual effects extravaganzas ever put to the big screen. It’s like tripping on acid while flipping through the pages of the old Steve Ditko comics, and helps to inject “Doctor Strange” with an exhilarating amount of much-needed energy.

Unlike the other students at Kamar-Taj, including Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Baron Mordo, it becomes increasingly clear that Strange isn’t interested in protecting the world as much as he just wants to be able to perform surgery again. When one of The Ancient One’s former students, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), begins to use forbidden spells and threatens to tear apart the entire multiverse, Strange is forced into a battle for the entire fate of humanity.

Writer and director Scott Derrickson does his absolute best to keep “Strange” going at a constant forward momentum, and he uses the film’s visual effects and fight sequences better than almost any other Marvel film has to date. There were moments where it felt like Derrickson had taken Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” as an inspiration for a number of sequences in the film before pumping it full of steroids and then converting it into highly effective 3D.

But it’s the little story elements that Derrickson adds to the sequences that really make them shine, such as a window that can take you to different place on Earth with the simple turn of a switch. Coming off of genre pieces including “Sinister” and “Deliver Us From Evil,” Derrickson brings his knack for creating atmosphere and mood to this film, along with an eye for creating set pieces that feels reminiscent of both Christopher Nolan and Edgar Wright.

Unfortunately, where Strange steps up the action and visual effects of the comic book genre, the rest of the film feels overly familiar. Switch out a couple of plot elements and character names, and this could easily be confused with Jon Favreau’s first “Iron Man” from a story and structure standpoint alone. Despite Derrickson’s best efforts as well, the film has to pack so much information, exposition, and world-building into it, along with the action sequences that audiences expect going into it, that it’s left with a very stop-and-go sort of pace. Much seems rushed over, and while it seems you’re keeping up, there’s also an inescapable feeling that you’re missing things along the way. But that was true of the original comic book, too.

In the end, “Doctor Strange” stands out as another fun, blood-pumping outing from Marvel Studios, elevated by Derrickson and the performances from the actors. Both Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton give enthralling turns as Stephen Strange and The Ancient One. They help anchor the emotions and drama of the film amid all of the world-building and visual-effects sequences. The series represents an exciting new step for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and now that the formula origin story is out of the way, promises never-before-seen stories to come.

“Doctor Strange” opens theaters on Nov. 4.