Run Time: 115 mins
In a cinematic year defined by two
powerhouse battles between famous characters and some other great superhero
movies comes Doctor Strange, the
sixth major comic book film of 2016, but thankfully, one of the most unique to
date. This follows Captain America: Civil
War as yes, the fourteenth installment
in the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe that has three more movies planned for
next year alone.
Benedict Cumberbatch (coolest name in Hollywood) stars as the
titular wizard alongside a solid supporting cast that includes Chiwetel
Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen and Tilda Swinton, amongst others. With
trailers that gave me the feeling of Inception
meets Marvel, I was pretty excited to see what we would get from this
fresh, new movie.
Doctor Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch)
is a genius neurosurgeon with a bit of an arrogant edge to him. One night, he
gets in a brutal car accident, losing so many nerves that he can no longer use
his hands. This makes him ultimately useless for his own work, and Strange
becomes very frustrated because of it. His relentless search for a seemingly
impossible cure eventually leads him to Kamar-Taj, a temple of sorts in Nepal.
There, he meets Mordo (Ejiofor) and The Ancient One (Swinton) as his hopeful
healing journey soon leads him into a world of mystical arts. Strange
eventually finds himself protecting our real world from the threats of whatever
lies beyond through the use of his newly learned abilities.
As confusing as that plot may sound,
I thought that these alternate universes were explained perfectly over the
course of the film, in a way that reminded me of the 1999 masterpiece, The Matrix. Similarly to that
science-fiction classic and even more recently with Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Doctor Strange has some truly genre-altering visual effects work
that will most likely change the way that science fiction films are made moving
forward. That being said, I think this is the most visually impressive out of
all the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. It also has an origin
story that I think is just as good as Batman
Begins, largely due to an excellent lead performance from Benedict
Cumberbatch. All of these things combined make me say that I enjoyed this movie
even more than Civil War, making Doctor Strange my favorite Marvel
chapter to date and as of right now, the best film of 2016 for me.
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