Doctor Strange (2016)

Blend Iron Man with Guardians of the Galaxy, stir in a liberal portion of Inception, and season lightly with Grey’s Anatomy, then bake for two hours in the classic Marvel Cinematic Universe formula, and you can imagine something pretty close to Doctor Strange, Marvel’s fourteenth and latest film which introduces magic and interdimensionality into the narrative tapestry of the MCU. While some have used the word “formula” derisively, Doctor Strange is an excellent example of why we don’t fix that which is not broken.

Benedict Cumberbatch joins the MCU world as Stephen Strange, an arrogant and narcissistic surgeon whose fate changes after a grisly car accident ends his medical practice by shattering his hands. In search of answers, Strange travels to Kamar-Taj, where he learns from The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and her pupil Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) the magic of the mystic arts. As rogue sorcerer Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) breaches the boundaries of reality to invite discord, Strange must choose between his old life and the new responsibilities he learns in Kamar-Taj.

Director Scott Derrickson has to introduce a lot of new things to Marvel with Doctor Strange, and he does a deft job of taking the universe into a new direction. While some of the magical aspects of the film resonate with Thor: The Dark World’s convergences and Ant-Man’s microverse, Doctor Strange is the most overtly mystical Marvel film to date, but a thrilling opener in the Mirror Dimension convinces the audience that this is all of a piece with what’s come before. Derrickson certainly owes a debt to the extra-gravitational imagery of Christopher Nolan’s Inception, sharing with the 2010 film a fondness for bending cityscapes and rotating corridors.

Derrickson also has to shuffle Benedict Cumberbatch into the MCU, and it’s honestly a little shocking that a star this big had to wait eight years to break in. But boy, does he fit right at home. Cumberbatch plays Strange as startlingly unpleasant in the film’s first act (with a particularly brutal one-liner to McAdams, which might be the MCU’s meanest line to date), and his sincerity in scenes laden with special effects goes a long way to selling us on the inherent strangeness (no pun intended) of the film’s conceits.

While I might not have intended to make a joke just there, Doctor Strange intends several, with a brand of humor that is more akin to the quirks of Guardians of the Galaxy than the snappy one-liners of Captain America: Civil War. (The librarian Wong, in particular, reminds one of Dave Bautista’s Drax.) Indeed, for all the high-concept magic and interdimensional strife at play in Doctor Strange, the film is surprisingly funny, lighthearted in the way we’ve come to expect from the MCU. Even characters like The Ancient One have their wry jests, and in that sense Doctor Strange’s sense of humor is more unexpected and therefore more successful. (Humor, after all, relies on the collision of the expected with the unexpected.)

As fantastic as Civil War was, reminding us of all the things we’ve loved about the MCU, Doctor Strange has me excited for the future of the universe, showing what can be done when the film tries something a little offbeat, something new about which the audience might not already have a preconceived notion. With Black Panther and Captain Marvel on the horizon, Marvel is setting up for a few new tricks, but if Doctor Strange becomes a kind of Iron Man for the future (both in setting tone and in installing an iconic star as the figurehead), I’m on board for fourteen more.

PS - Be certain to check out a 3D screening. I can't imagine the film working halfway as well in two dimensions.

Doctor Strange is rated PG-13 for “sci-fi violence and action throughout, and an intense crash sequence.” Directed by Scott Derrickson. Written by Jon Spaihts, Scott Derrickson, and C. Robert Cargill. Based on the Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Mads Mikkelsen, and Tilda Swinton.