Dr. Strange: Weekly Review #6

Review of the Week:

A Journey into The Strange

 

Marvel once again shows off its superiority in bring comic book characters to life on the big screen with its FOURTEENTH installment in their ever-expanding cinematic universe. This film franchise has explored various heroes and villains, some more unique than next, for example, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, Thor, Loki, Vision and many others. This time they tackle (HA, right) with the Sorcerer Supreme himself: Doctor Strange.

            Spoiler Alert! This is another origin story, but a visually satisfying origin story. The film centers around an esteemed neuro-surgeon by the name of Stephen Strange who one day loses his hands in a near-fatal car accident (not literally, but close). Now he no longer possesses the ability to firmly operate on his patients and slowly loses confidence in himself and seeks outside help. As his options start to run low, Strange decides to visit a secret temple in Nepal, where certain people might be able to help with his situation. Instead of finding a solution, Strange finds an alternative.

            This movie has THE most impressive cast list I’ve ever seen in a MARVEL film. Probably the greatest casting choice from MARVEL comes in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) as the title character. He embodies Doctor Strange without any effort whatsoever, basically he was born to play this character. Though I can say the same for everyone else in the movie and all the other MCU* films (*Marvel Cinematic Universe). Another memorable performance for me, was Madds Mikkelsen (Hannibal) as the villain. He just adds this charisma and swag that many of the bad guys in the MCU lacked and not to mention that him and Cumberbatch have some of my favorite interactions between a hero and villain. I will admit, to me, I thought of this film as more of a battle between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Hannibal Lecter, to be honest (which is still pretty awesome).

            Visually… good lord! This IS the most visually stunning MARVEL film I have ever seen. Just from the opening scene alone, I could tell a lot of hard work was put into this. While some people have pointed that the visuals are very reminiscent of Inception, that’s not really a bad thing, in fact Doctor Strange takes the visuals from Inception and amplifies them times ten! Another thing the film has going for it is the magic as well. While the magic the character’s use, may seem limited by some fans of the original comic, it does help the film from straying too far from the story and keeps it on point (it still looks cool regardless).

FINAL RATING:

I had the opportunity to watch the film in IMAX 3-D and I can confirm it is worth every single penny. You can get the most out of this movie when it’s on a big screen especially an IMAX screen. I highly recommend watching Dr. Strange while it is still in theaters and available on IMAX, or else it will not be as memorable for you (who knows, maybe it still will be).

Until Next Time, Believe the Unbelievable...