Doctor Strange was released this week in France and I saw it yesterday night. It’s starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen and it’s directed by Scott Derrickson.
Doctor Strange is another superheroes Marvel movie, however this one is actually very good. It’s different from the others due to its universe of magic. It’s a whole different world. It’s focused on the visuals of this multiverse by deforming our universe, a lot of colors, it’s psychedelic. It’s breathtaking on that part! The movie begins by putting us right into the mood with a fight between Kaecilius the bad guy and the Ancient One.
It’s an origin story of how the Doctor Stephen Strange becomes this master of mystic arts. When he was a neurosurgeon, Strange is arrogant, selfish, it’s not someone you can like, that even causes him a very bad car accident. Because of his accident, Strange is left with several injuries and steel bars in his fingers, he’s in pain and becomes even less like-able than before. He desperately searches he way to get better that’s when it goes to see the Ancient One and it’s not what he expected. The Ancient One doesn’t offer him medical assistance but she opens him the doors to the mystic arts. That’s during his training that Strange becomes like-able and an interesting character, he changes, he opens this mind to this multiverse and learns the arts. He wants to learn more and more and obviously becomes more and more powerful. It sends him right into the middle of the fight against Kaecilius who’s trying to enslave the world.
The characters are well developed, they’re not all white nor all dark, they are grey characters. The Ancient One is not as wise as she seems to be, she draws her powers from the dark universe, she’s playing with fire but she’s doing it because she thinks it’s the right thing to do to protect the world. Strange obviously evolves like I said before to become a better man while Mordo is friend evolves into something worse as he discovers the truth about the Ancient One. The cast is great, Cumberbatch is really suited for the role of Strange, not sure I could have seen someone else doing it.
Despite being different in terms of visuals, Strange remains highly formulaic and follows the usual Marvel pattern and that’s where it fails. There’s way too much humor that even makes you forget sometimes the real danger the heroes are facing, it’s not dark enough. When you open a comic book, it’s not a comedy. Warner Bros knows how to do superheroes movies with DC, they have built a dark universe, even if it’s not all dark, there’s light too but it’s definitely darker than Marvel, and DC knows how to make high stake threats. They know how to do a serious and dark movie and how to do masterpieces unlike Marvel, just look at the 3 DCEU movies that have been released – all amazing.
6/10 It’s better than the other Marvel movies, but it remains too formulaic. However it’s a great spectacle for the eyes and has a stunning cast!
A Fistful Of Movies 