Marvel might be the Shakespeare of our times

Rating: 8/10 (15 March 2017)

There is a branch of historians arguing that Shakespeare actually wasn't a single person, but a collective of writers publishing their work under the name of a fictional persona. I sometimes wonder whether Marvel is today what Shakespeare was back then. There is barely any Marvel movie which isn't a work of great craftsmanship and fun to ingest while retelling classical conflicts of drama in a fresh way reflecting the postmodern or post postmodern or post whatever times we live in.
DOCTOR STRANGE delves deep into the depths of mysticism, catches bits of esoteric knowledge and pseudo knowledge, mystical techniques and philosophic mind over matter conceptions, and cooks a wild, bright, colorful meal out of it back at the surface, spiced up with the usual myriad of references for example pointing to the MATRIX (Kaecillius and consorts walking just like Neo & co), martial arts flicks (the fights, the zooms) and 2001 - A SPACE ODYSEE (the dimensional shifts).
The film uses expressionistic, fat brush strokes so to speak, working with strong contrasts and hyper stylized exaggerations. It does it with charming elegance, never slipping into the muddy traps of ridiculous trash. DOCTOR STRANGE can be an inspiration. I can't help but liking it.