Walking in to my local theater Thursday night, I had virtually no expectations for Marvel's "Doctor Strange". I had been hearing some promising things from critics and I'm a huge fan of Marvel Studios, but I wasn't expecting to be blown away. Yet here I am: blown away.
"Doctor Strange" hooks you in from its very first scene. Within the first five minutes, you get a theft, a beheading, and city street battle between the thieves and a hooded savior. Sure, maybe you've seen things like that before in movies, but I promise you that you haven't seen it like this. The action in this film is without precedent. With each new scene, you get something deeply creative, visually striking, and immensely weird. There were moments in this film that visually boggled my mind, and left my eyes in a trance.
The film centers around Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), a brilliant neurosurgeon, whose hands are left impaired by a car accident. After years of struggle and failure with western medicine, Strange heads east to Nepal in search of a healing compound called Kamar-Taj. There, he meets the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who challenges his belief in the spiritual realm. She shows him her mystic powers, and claims the only way he can heal his physical self is to train his spiritual self.
The film's most interesting moments are when these powers are on full display. An evil sorcerer named Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelson) uses his abilities to move buildings: folding them on top of each other, stretching hallways, moving sidewalks to become walls. It's almost impossible for me to describe in words what all this looks like. There is basically nothing like it in any other movie. The closest example I have is Christopher Nolan's "Inception", where the city folds in one of the first dream sequences. Still yet, that movie doesn't hold a candle to what "Doctor Strange" does visually, and if you're walking into this movie expecting "Inception" but with magic, you're in for a huge awakening.
I shouldn't be surprised that this movie is so good. Marvel's track record is unparalleled. On the critical scoring site Rotten Tomatoes, the studio has yet to make even one film with a "rotten" critical reception. That's not an easy feat. Even Pixar has one (Darn you, "Cars 2"). However, even for a studio like Marvel, with a sterling reputation, "Doctor Strange" was a huge risk. It is, perhaps, the biggest risk they've ever taken. It's a character few have heard of, a convoluted comic book story, and a entire new mystic realm they've never dealt with.
And it was so worth it.
We need more films like "Doctor Strange". We need more studios like Marvel. They are taking risks on weird and unique stories, giving them to capable directors, and letting the pieces fall into place. The thing Marvel has been so good at is hiring talent to produce their properties, and letting directors and actors put their stamp on the work, even though it's a part of a larger body. We need film studios to place trust in the people they hire to make the vision a reality. We need movies that are more visually unique and stories that are out of the box. Luckily, we are starting to see some of that ("Arrival" comes out next week and it looks awesome), but "Doctor Strange" is pushing it even further. I'm happy that creativity sometimes shines through in a world of dreary sequels and reboots no one asked for.
