A deeper Marvel story...who knew.

Rating: 7/10 (12 February 2017)

Some guy steals a book and tears some pages from it after killing some guys. It's Hannibal. As he makes his escape, the architect, I mean, a bald monk arrives and start flipping space horizontally and vertically, still, Hannibal escapes through some wormhole.
Then we meet Dr. Strange a brilliant and supremely arrogant neurosurgeon who thinks he's brighter than he really is. While recklessly driving his Lambo he crashes and barely survives. His hands are trashed. A therapist tells him the story of a guy who was paralyzed but now is walking. The Dr. finds him and this guy tells him about Nanda Parbat, I mean, Kamar-Taj where he can undergo spiritual and physical healing.
The Dr. travels to Nepal and starts asking about the place. He's trailed by some monk who eventually takes him there and right away introduces him to the Ancient One, a laughably miscast Tilda Swinton, who was the bald monk from the intro. The other monk, Mordo, is all for supporting the Dr. while Baldy realizes that his massive ego is in the way. She gives the Dr. some Eastern metaphysics lessons to no avail. When he's left no choice but to surrender, he finally develops the power to control energy. She also tells him about the order of things, namely, there are multiverses most of which are under the control of Parallax, I mean, Dormammu. Our multiverse is the last free one so there are temples in NY, London, and Honk Kong to protect the planet. And that is where Hannibal is heading.
The pages Hannibal took give him the power to control time. The brilliant Dr. learns everything he can from the ashram's library, including things he shouldn't and with the eye of so-and-so he too controls time and envisions the missing pages. He also learns something interesting about Baldy. At one of the temples, a floating cape attaches to him and he he fights with Hannibal and his minions. Now a fully empowered Dr. and Mordo and the librarian head to the last temple where Dormammu is about to swallow the universe.
Why has it taken so long for the Marvel/Disney mafia to release this story instead of cranking out the other ridiculous dressed-up goof movies by the dozen who knows. According to Baldy while the avengers fight in the physical plane, these monks fight in the astral plane, which is of course baloney because here too the fights are physical. The confrontation between Dr. and the colorful kaleidoscope of Dormammu is a bit more cerebral. At least this movie goes a bit deeper with the Eastern thinking. The problem is, it also tries to be irreverent. In fact, this movie doesn't know when to get serious and when to go for laughs. The backstory of the Dr. is also interesting. Competent professionals always make for good characters. Also strong is the philosophy of time, mixed with a bit of ethics. It seems to be getting fashionable as it also was the theme of Arrival. There's a bit of an ethical twist which is very good. The bad guys here do have the stronger argument. But the movie for no good reason flip-flops on the issue.
I'm going to give this movie a higher score than it deserves mainly for exposing moviegoers to some deeper thoughts even if it does it tongue-in-cheek unfortunately.