Another Marvel Winner

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2016)

Marvel's Doctor Strange is a visual feast of magical fantasy in the vein of Harry Potter & Aladdin. While its tone is in-line with the larger MCU, its style stands-out from its decidedly similar counterparts. With trippy universe traveling and Inception-on-steroids world bending, it's one of the few superhero entries in recent years whose giant scope is fitting, whose immense danger is understandable, and whose convoluted mythos works. In a make-believe world without boundaries, Doctor Strange runs with gleeful and refreshing abandon. Plot-wise, it has all the familiar origin-story beats: everyday genius discovers powers, his disbelief eventually gives way to the truth, initially struggles with powers, realizes he has inexplicable skill "inside him", and then uses his powers for sacrificial good. Its strength, as is the case with most MCU films, is its bright character and small moments of humanity. Strange starts as an intentionally less-charming Tony Stark before becoming a less dense Thor-like hero, surrounded by spiritual gurus, ageless sages, villainous space-jumpers and character-enhanced capes. It would be easy to allow overt piety to overwhelm the screen, but that is sidestepped nicely with great humor that plays with the intersection between normal reality and spiritual reality. That balance isn't always struck perfectly, however. Early on, there are too many strange tonal shifts and some pace-halting exposition that get in the way. Even the larger visual greatness is stunted at times in the frantic and hard-to-follow combat scenes. However, it's still a popcorn-fueled mind-bender that is (at worst) a middle-of-the-road Marvel film, which still puts it way above most blockbusters these days.