Beautiful, Complex and Entertaining

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2016)

Let's have the entitled fanboys step aside for a moment and just look at this movie as filmgoers. Or JUST LOOK AT THIS MOVIE!! You'll be glad you did.
First, we have Doctor Strange, an immediately interesting character even without foreknowledge of his coming Sorcerer Supremeness. They wrote in character moments, but it's the brilliant Cumberbatch who brings every bit as much of his extraordinary talent to a comic book hero as he does to Richard the Third. In his exchange with fellow doctor and former lover Christine Palmer, he shows us the arrogance (well-earned by his skill) and narcissism (a result of too many admirers) but he also gives us the subtle edge of vulnerability, and the director has the very good sense to stay on the face of this most eloquent without dialogue actor.
The journey to find his teacher, the relationships he forges, the character arc that the film wisely takes time to establish, all draw us further and further into our own relationship with this character.
For the non-tent-pole-action-flick-fan, the movie is beautiful, the action not mindless or overweening, and the final solution to the problem unique. Here at the end, when Doctor Strange chooses self-sacrifice and the writers choose to honor the deeper mysticism behind the magic, we find a new solution to defeating evil that does not involve a bigger better form of blowing stuff up.
You can take kids ten and over if you want. But mostly, just go. Eat a bunch of popcorn, have a great time and be swept up in a the story of a new hero.