After the awfulness of Suicide Squad, I think we're all a bit wary of dipping our toes back into the super hero movie world. But, alas, there's no escaping the realm of caped/masked avengers and their ilk these days. Did you know that movie studios are already working on a two-part Avengers film, a Ben Affleck directed Batman flick, and a Justice League movie (Johnny Depp's battered ex-wife is now Aquaman's wife!). And I'm sure you already caught the teaser trailer for next summer's Guardians of the Galaxy sequel (which, apparently, steals all of it's music from Reservoir Dogs). So, if you go to the movies, just give in already. And now the newest super-hero movie is here. It's time to accept your movie-going fate.
Doctor Strange is, to put it mildly, kind of scraping the barrel (I think, when watching all of these B-super-hero films, in the back of our mind we're always wishing we were just watching a Spider-Man or Batman movie instead). Last year, when Marvel started a new Doctor Strange comic book with the super star team of writer Jason Aaron and artist Chris Bachalo, I admitted that I've been reading comic books since the late 80's and have never read a Doctor Strange comic. So...who is he? What's his deal? Why's he been around since the 60's and has never been in a film before? All good questions. And after seeing this movie and reading the comic book I can tell you: he's not very interesting.
The movie does what anyone would do when writing a new super-hero movie. A) introduce the back story, B) introduce a villain, and C) have said villain and super-hero fight at the end. Duh. I guess if you wanted to make any of that by-the-numbers stuff work in a new, fresh, super-exciting way you could either totally screw with the blueprint and forge something bold and original or just make one hell of an awesome movie that follows the blueprint. Doctor Strange is, sadly, neither. It's entertaining, forgettable, forgotten. But it does achieve something that most popcorn movies should, at the very least, be: watchable. There's your tagline! "Well, I watched it." Which is to say, what more than most people did while viewing Suicide Squad...which was probably more a combination of, "I suffered through it," and, "I survived the barrage."
Benedict Cumberbatch, psuedo-weird American accent and all, stars as Doctor Strange. He's a brilliant, amusing, full-of-himself surgeon who has a cute female doctor friend played by Rachel McAdams. His character is so much like Robert Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark that I was constantly wishing that, somehow, a world could exist where they had actually cast Downey here. And while Cumberbatch does not have the gravitas of Downey, he's fine here and quite amusing in parts. After a car accident, the doctor is battered so he looks to ancient magic to restore him. Cue the silly Rocky-esque training sequences. Instead of, you know, hitting the gym there's...magic! Magic with the magician The Ancient One played by Tilda Swinton. Yes, Doctor Strange is a magician. That's the catch. A magician super-hero! After he learns all about magic he ends up battling the evil magician, Kaecilius, played by the always awesome Mads Mikkelsen (who would have thought that Mikkelsen was once playing a drug dealer with a tattoo on his head failing to get it up with a hooker in Denmark in Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher and now he's, like, a big American movie star? Crazy!). Strange also has his zany sidekick, Wong (who, surprisingly, steals the show...I want a TV show with just Wong and Doctor Strange hanging out), and his magician friend, Mordo, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who's really slumming it here (remember his starring performance in 12 Years a Slave? Well, Hollywood doesn't).
And that's pretty much what this movie is; a bunch of magicians fighting to save the human race. Which, honestly, sounds a lot more exciting than it is. The one thing that is cool about this movie are the special f/x. For no real good reason, the villain likes to control time, space, and gravity. So we get a lot of pointless action scenes of upside-down buildings and rooms folding inside and out. Basically, someone watched Christopher Nolan's Inception and thought it was cool enough to steal from. But it literally makes no sense (not that magician super-hero's make sense of course). Why does the villain try to stop Doctor Strange by moving around buildings and freezing time and all of this visually cool crap? Is there not, like, a death spell? Where's the cruciatus curse when you need it?
One of the better action sequences in the film occurs when Doctor Strange is on a hospital gurney while McAdams is attempting to revive him but, of course, Doctor Strange's mental/ghost mind is secretly battling a villain to the death on another, unseen plateau. But the best part is the joke that runs through the film about Wong only having one name like Adele or Beyonce. It's a throwaway thing, an amusing side anecdote that has a great climax. And this playful comradery only made me pine for the much more engrossing Sherlock Holmes TV show, which it was announced this week is returning on January 1st. Cumberbatch looks like he's truly having the time of his life on that show while in Doctor Strange he's just another part of the machine, a well-oiled, big budget Marvel super-hero movie created simply to print cash. It's an entertaining popcorn film but it's light as air, there and gone, a blip on the radar. And is this all we deserve? Us minions? **1/2 (out of ****)
