As many long time readers know, my family loves Marvel movies. Doctor Strange caught my interest when I saw the trailers, and intrigued me enough to go and see it. The characters and world twisting seems like they would create something completely new from what Marvel has done before. So, I hope you enjoy my review on Doctor Strange.
The movie starts with three figures walking through a dark courtyard area towards a door. We then end up in a secret library with the librarian putting away a book with chains to hold the book in place on a strange book rack. The three men walk in, along with many others surrounding the librarian, then using magic to bind him in place. The one hooded man, Kaecilius (played by Mads Mikkelsen) comes close to the librarians head, grabs the two small axes behind his back, then slices his head off with one quick slash. Kaecilius then goes and finds a book, flips through until he finds the pages he wants, then tears them out. A mysterious hooded figure appears in the room and says the spell will only bring him trouble. He reaches for his axes as if to attack, but then runs off with all the others following soon after. They all end up on the streets, and make a break for some of the bigger buildings across the street. They all stop dead in their tracks when they see a sort of glass mirror effect in front of them, turning around to the hooded person move their hand, causing the buildings to shift abnormally. Gravity turns sideways as this happens, and some of the buildings behind them move outwards and begin rolling towards them all. A battle ensues here, with some of the people getting crushed by the rolling buildings, but in the end Kaecilius escapes with some of them, and the figure causes everything to go back to normal. The person then begins walking down the street, and from the back we see them take off their hood to reveal a bald head.
It then moves to Doctor Stephen Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) washing his hands, putting on his surgery jacket, then his mask, and finally his gloves to prepare for doing a surgery. He begins to do the surgery, then says to one of the other doctors it's a challenge round, and they change the song, to which Strange says the song is "Feels So Good, Chuck Mangione, 1977" and that it isn't a challenge. The other doctor says its 1978, but Strange says the album was released in December 1977 and became more popular in 1978. The other doctor said they checked Wikipedia, but Strange tells him to look again to confirm. The assisting surgeon asks Strange where he stores all this useless information. Turns out he is right and everyone can't believe it. He finishes what he is doing and notices Dr. Christine Palmer (played by Rachel McAdams) standing outside the door gesturing to an emergency. The other surgeon offers to finish up as he goes to talk to her.
The acting was enjoyable to watch and almost lifelike. I love it when a group of strong actors come together and actually make something good. Rachel McAdams was probably a little more cliché than I would have liked, but she played it well. But I must give my praise to Benedict Cumberbatch who plays an ego ridden know it all very well, but adding that vulnerable side to bring his character to the transition of sorcerer is brilliant. Mads Mikkelsen's bad guy, Kaecilius, also seems very cliché straight bad guy until closer to the end when his pain over why he is doing what he is truly comes out. I believe some of the cliché acting probably has to do with the script.
The story plot was fascinating to go through. It has some of that knock down the big ego guy and transform him into something we can relate to back in the origin of Ironman, but his human struggle is so much more relatable to. His search to regain what he once had only to be taken deeper into a dark pit makes for his come back as super hero that much more interesting to watch. I like the twists, both in storyline and actual reality. The CGI is amazing to watch and worth going to see the movie alone. My only problem would be some of the cliché touches but I guess every super hero movie needs some of those.
Overall, with the almost lifelike performances, and the twisted reality scenes, it had the opportunity to be greater. Though the clichés were there, along with a few other things, it was still very good. So, for the reasons above, I would rate this 8.9/10.
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