3D is worth it, for this once

Rating: Null/10 (28 October 2016)

The one thing that really stands out in this movie is the eye-popping "city-folding" CGI, inherited from "Inception" and further enhanced. I have usually found 3D a nuisance. For this movie, however, it is well worth it.
For ingenuity and depth, "Doctor Strange" is a far cry from Christopher Nolan's "Inception" but the bar there is so high that I am not even sure if the comparison is fair. As a comic book adaptation, DS is well above passing grade, offering the familiar ingredients: egotistic hero, the supreme evil, time manipulation, interplay of dimensions and elements, martial-art-type action, mandatory romance, cryptic humor, among others.
We start by witnessing a what you may call "intellectual men's Tony Stark", the titular superhero (Benedict Cumberbatch), having his top-surgeon career crashed, literally, in a car accident that leaves him with fingers he can barely move. To cut a long establishing sequence short, we find him eventually in Kathmandu, Nepal seeking salvation and finding himself sucked into something considerably more than he bargained for.
On the good guys' side are the boss The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and two sidekicks Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor, British classic pedigree) and Wong (another Benedict, all-poker-faced here, Benedict Wong). The bad guy is renegade disciple Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen, arguably the best known Danish face currently on the silver screen) and a few sidekicks who are little more than mere props. And yes, there is the supreme evil that manifests itself only as a voice and a dubious blur of an animated figure, not unlike Sauron on LOTR.
I use the word "boss" above deliberately. Swinton's portrayal of what might have been a mystery-shrouded figure surprised and impressed me with its contemporary feel. I immediately associate this in her "Michael Clayton" (2007) playing a corporate conspirator against George Clooney's titular hero. As one critic points out, the names Cumberbatch, Swinton and Ejiofor may conjure up in your mind a Shakspearian stage, and seeing them together in a comic adaptation throwing sorcerer bolts at each other in certainly refreshing. I mentioned mandatory romance and here the love object is ex-girlfriend and colleague Doctor Christine Palmer played by the always-lovely Rachel McAdams.
This movie even offers well-spaced comical quips, such as self-adhesive costume similar to Iron Man's. Here, it is a Dracula-type robe with high pointed collars that become rather irritating when they refuse of lie down flat against our hero's collarbones.
I think I have said just about everything that needs to be said regarding this movie. Just sit back, out on your 3D glass, and enjoy.