Pure Marvel Magic

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2016)

I saw "Doctor Strange", starring Benedict Cumberbatch-Black Mass, 12 Years a Slave; Chiwetel Ejiofor-The Martian, 12 Years a Slave; Rachel McAdams-Aloha, the Sherlock Holmes movies; Mads Mikkelsen-Hannibal_tv, Casino Royale_2006 and Tilda Swinton-Trainwreck, Constantine.
This is based on a comic book hero created by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko in 1963, and yes, Stan has his usual cameo appearance-look for him on a bus that Benedict slams into. Doctor Strange is a lesser known character-to most non-comic readers-that uses magic, or the mystic arts, instead of the usual super powers. Where as the Avengers handle the super powered villains, Stephen Strange fights supernatural enemies from other dimensions. In fact, his powers are explained as being energy that is drawn from other dimensional planes of existence. Of course, the origin story has to be told, but it isn't one most people know, so it isn't boring. Basically, Benedict plays a gifted, egotistical surgeon that gets in a car accident that damages his hands-what he makes his living with-and tries all kinds of traditional medical remedies, that just don't work. He then hears about a crippled man that was mysteriously healed and goes in search of his nontraditional cure. This leads him to Chiwetel/Mordo, a student of Tilda/the Ancient One-in the comics, the Ancient One is an old man but it was changed here to be a woman. Tilda and Chiwetel teach Benedict in the mystic arts and how to focus the energy into shields and weapons because another student, Mads, that dropped out of Tilda's class, has gone to the dark side and teamed up with Dormammu and is on the verge of destroying the world-they need Benedict's help to stop them. Rachel is a fellow doctor that Benedict works with and she gets involved in things, like patching up Benedict after a battle. And as far as the battles go, there are mystic battles-with fantastic looking special effects that look like the movie Inception on steroids-and there are also some good martial arts fights as well as plenty of humor thrown in for good measure. Oh yeah, at the beginning, look for a new Marvel opening logo and as the end credits start, there is a scene with an Avenger and at the very end, after the credits, is another scene with Chiwetel. It's rated "PG-13" for sci-fi action and violence and has a running time of 1 hour & 55 minutes. This is a movie that was made to be seen in 3D, which I did, and I would definitely buy it on Blu-Ray.