Review: “Doctor Strange”

DERRICKSON, Scott (Dir.), “Doctor Strange”, Marvel Studios/Stereo D/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2016.

This next instalment of the MCU is a bit of a no-brainer. Any fan of Marvel Comics from the earliest days knows that Doctor Strange is the glue that unites the Marvel world. As the “Sorcerer Supreme” he is always aware of imminent threats to the planet and typically – if he can’t take them down by himself – organises the best allies he can find in order to do so. Alternatively, other super-groups seek him out for mystical guidance when the going gets too spooky to handle. The ‘mystical fix-it dude’; that’s who he is. He’s also a bit of a loner, keeping to himself and cleaning up his own messes, saving the world without anybody ever realising it. Essentially, he’s all kinds of cool – or at least that’s what I thought of him back in the ‘70s when he first crossed my radar.

It will come as no surprise to anybody that I’m a Stephen Strange groupie of old. Let me be clear about this: a Doctor Strange fan; not a so-called “Cumber-Bitch”. In fact, when I first heard that Benedict Cumberbatch was going to be playing Strange, I had my first serious doubts. I mean, yes, he looked the part, but could he walk the walk? When he played Khan in J.J. Abrams’ version of “Wrath of Khan” he looked like he was phoning it in. Also, he has no chin and the role of Khan has all kinds of implicit chin - Khan is, by default, no somnambulistic, chinless wonder. Fortunately, Cumberbatch seemed excited by the possibilities of this role and they gave him a goatee – win-win!

My other initial qualm was how they were going to work the magic. The original comics are famous for Steve Ditko’s psychedelic magical warfare with webs and mandalas of mystic force filling every panel – could they pull this off cinematically? When I was much younger and began tinkering around with Dungeons & Dragons, I began to pull together a set of house rules for mystical combat and Ditko’s artwork was the inspiration behind it. I imagined mages going one-on-one in magical duels, creating patterns of mana in various shapes that would cancel each other out, providing attack and defense with shape combinations drawn by the characters’ opposing players... well, it was a nice idea that only got half-baked before I moved on to other things. Still, the Ditko element was crucial and I thought if the film doesn’t get this right, it won’t work at all.

Turns out, I didn’t have to worry. What rolled across the screen was an “Inception”-like re-imagining of Ditko’s hallucinogenics, kind of like looking at the universe through a kaleidoscope, and it worked a treat. If spectacle is what blockbuster cinema is all about, then this is the spectacle that you’re looking for. I can only think that the art department on this baby felt like all their Christmases had come at once – the amount of pretty architecture that unfurls throughout this film is just brilliant. If it had just been 115 minutes of watching these effects, I would have felt like I’d gotten my money’s worth. That’s just me of course, but the narrative elements were there also.

Strangely enough (see what I did there?), the story was the weakest link in the film. This is for a few reasons: firstly, Doctor Strange has been around for decades, and anyone calling themself a Marvel fan knows the tale. It’s not Batman-level origin material – where even those who aren’t comics fans know the drill – but it’s common knowledge for the rest of us. Secondly, it felt like they were rushing us through it so they could just whack the “Cloak of Levitation” and the “All-seeing Eye of Agamotto” onto Cumberbatch and get things rolling – there are some pacing issues. Thirdly, as usual, the Girlfriend gets the short end of the stick. This is a problem because, just as they are casting big name male actors in these films, they are also casting big name female actors and then giving them crap to work with and no screen time. I’m aware that the source material was targeted at adolescent males who needed vicarious girlfriends and advice on how to handle them in their rampantly-hormonal lives, but surely we’ve moved on from there? At least with Rachel McAdams’ character she wasn’t quite Stephen Strange’s Significant Other at the start of the film but she gets relegated pretty quickly. The phenomenon is getting quite marked and by this film it’s the sixth or seventh time we’ve seen it out of 14 movies: it’s getting really old and even the tinkering in this film shows that the studio is sensing our impatience on the rise. Hopefully things will change.

There was much to enjoy as far as the action was concerned and also the inevitable trimming and re-imagining of characters to fit in to the ongoing cinema versions of the comics source. Making the Eye of Agamotto an Infinity Stone was a nice touch and the tweaking of Baron Mordo’s character was interesting and lays the foundation for some cool interactions in the future. Tilda Swinton was excellent as The Ancient One despite all the infantile poo-throwing from the Peanut Gallery about how “A Girl Can’t Play That Part” (a puerile chorus we can call “Ghostbusters 2016, Resurgam” from now on), as was Mads Mikkelson as the villainous acolyte of the Dread Dormammu. (On a side note, I was a little disappointed that no-one called Dormammu “The Dread Dormammu”, which is how he is almost invariably referred to in the comics. Also, no-one invoked “The Hoary Hordes of Hoggoth”, but I can kind of understand that...) Most importantly, Marvel has retained their way with the quick-fire dialogue and the ready humour which, as we’ve seen, is sadly lacking from everything that DC has pushed forth so far.

To conclude, I thoroughly enjoyed this film and had a ball. Given that the last super-dude flick I saw was “Batman V Superman” (I think that ‘V’ is supposed to be a ‘vs.’, unless of course it’s a ‘5’?), this was a mostly under-hyped delight which hadn’t de-bagged all of its cats before time. Someone should have done some research on how “Cagliostro” is supposed to be pronounced (Hint: not how it looks), but that’s a small quibble on balance.

I’m giving it 4 Tentacled Horrors. 

*****

PS: I'm hearing a lot of grumbles about The Ancient One not being played by an Asian actor. On some level I can see what the comments are about, but I have a feeling that those voicing opposition aren't really hooked-in to what's going on here. Margaret Cho's comments about "reclaiming Asian stories" absolutely do not apply in this case, because the only reason - way back in the '60s - that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko made the character Asian at all, stemmed from a bunch of racial stereotypes that aren't anything to do with any actual Asian cultural tropes, but rather come from such things as "Sax" Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels, crude pulp magazine depictions of sinister Asian masterminds, "The Shadow" and James Hilton's Lost Horizon. There's nothing here to "reclaim"; just a few queasy racist holdovers to neatly avoid, which - huzzah! - they did by casting Tilda Swinton. Problem solved.