Somewhat Stranger than the Others

Rating: 8/10 (30 October 2016)

The annoying thing about movies is that you spend all this time anticipating a movie and after two hours, boom, it is over, and thus you then spend all your time trying to anticipate the next movie. I guess it has a lot to do with the age of fast fashion and fast advertising where things come and go so quickly that if we blink we miss them. In a way it is much like me spending half an hour wandering through an art gallery taking photos of all of the works of art so that I might spend some time afterward appreciating them. What has this got to do with the movie? Well, Doctor Strange is one of those films that I spent most of the year anticipating, and now that I am writing a review on it clearly indicates that I have seen it, and now it is in the past. It's not that it was a bad film, it is just the experience was so short that I felt that I didn't get to savor the experience as much as I would have liked to.
The main problem with this film, as is the case with a lot of the MCU films, is that they need to take time developing the character and exploring his creation story, which means that you end up having little time to deal with the actual antagonist. Usually the plot goes along the line of guy becomes superhero but before guy (or girl) is fully trained the mentor is killed and the superhero must now defeat the antagonist despite not being fully equipped to be able to defeat the antagonist, however through luck, and smarts, manages to do so. This is basically the plot of Doctor Strange. Mind you, if you aren't looking for anything all that deep in the plot then fine, but if you are, well, unfortunately Doctor Strange isn't going to deliver.
The interesting thing is that it was suggested that Doctor Strange takes a bit of a new direction with regards to the superhero genre, and they have done it to prevent what is termed 'superhero fatigue'. If there are way too many films that just have a superhero fighting bad guys then people are eventually going to become sick of them. At this stage they seem to be releasing two MCU films a year, so obviously they need to fiddle with the concept to keep people interested, and they have certainly done that with Doctor Strange – this time we wander into the world of Chinese mysticism.
The thing with Doctor Strange (which is actually his real name) is that he is a neurologist, though he is one of those elite group who only operate on patients that they know that they will succeed (though also having a challenge to keep things interesting). In a way it means that they can maintain a 100% success rate, and also keep their notoriety intact. The problem is that Dr Strange has a rather nasty car accident, namely because he is so full of himself that he believes that he can speed, and talk on a mobile phone, while navigating a twisting, mountainous road. Obviously he fails, and lands up with hands so mangulated that he will never perform surgery again. Except that he discovers a place where he can theoretically be healed.
It turns out that his perception of reality has been challenged – he is a doctor therefore he only understands, and accepts, the scientific, though he is now being confronted with the spiritual. What is happening here is that we are entering another area of the MCU – initially we have the technological with Iron Man and Captain America, the the gods of Asgard, then the science-fiction element of Guardians of the Galaxy, and now we delve into the mystical and magical world of Doctor Strange. It certainly does create a new dimension to the series.
Another thing that stood out was that this film reminded me, in some places, of Inception. I guess it had a lot to do with how they were manipulating reality in the film. Actually, those scenes occurred in a parallel dimension, in much the same way that similar scenes occurred in Inception. Okay, the film wasn't necessarily the same (Inception was much, much better), but the special effects were still pretty cool, and the film really enjoyable. However it's over now so I guess that means that I am now looking forward to the next film on my list.