It feels obligatory to sing the praises of Marvel Studios every time a new entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) comes out. To no one's surprise, Doctor Strange has impressed critics with a 91% approval ratio on Rotten Tomatoes, and is set to score a domestic opening weekend of at least USD$70 million. Ever since the release of Iron Man in 2007, Marvel's success has been unstoppable – scoring critical and box office hit after hit. Doctor Strange marks the biggest risk Marvel has ever taken and it seems that the risk has paid off as well.
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| The teal-and-orange madness of Doctor Strange's theatrical poster. |
Doctor Strange comes directly after the wildly enjoyable Captain America: Civil War. While the success of a film like Captain America: Civil War might be attributed largely to the well-developed and cohesive "cinematic universe", Doctor Strange, being an origin story, rides less on the coattails of the MCU. Different from the origin story of Ant-Man, Doctor Strange makes almost no mention of the rest of The Avengers until – you guessed it – the mid-credits scene. In the past, Marvel has stepped into the intergalactic in Guardians of the Galaxy, so this is nothing new for Doctor Strange; Doctor Strange marks the first time the MCU steps into the mystical. These two key features make Doctor Strange starkly different from the rest of the universe. One more thing that sets it apart is probably the prestige behind this project – with a stellar cast of Oscar nominees such as Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tilda Swinton, and Rachel McAdams, Doctor Strange tackles themes and concepts that channel Inception and even 2001: A Space Odyssey vibes. Clearly, Doctor Strange is Marvel's attempt to create a distinctive entity that looks and feels more 'serious' and 'deep' than your average comic-book adaptation.
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| Doctor Strange features Inception-esque visuals. |
Story-wise and concept-wise, the film mostly succeeds. The film does indeed go full-on mystical. We are reminded again and again of realms that exist beyond our senses and universes that normal people have no knowledge of. While Inception tries to ground its ideas in realistic science-fiction, the Ancient One (yes, that's her name) from Doctor Strange responds to the eponymous character's qualms about things not making sense with "well, not everything does". Marvel has always been daring in its attempt to expand its universe – it has never been afraid to play with other planets in Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy and I applaud their boldness. However, with aggressive expansion comes excessive exposition. A film that dabbles in the otherworldly needs to explain its rules clearly, and Doctor Strange merely does a passable job at that. The rules of the universe gradually unravel and are not clearly established at first, but the action and spectacle cover the holes in logic (or lack thereof) adequately. At its core, Doctor Strange is a hero's journey, and the film does not fall into the trap of spending too much time in exposition and digressing from the story.
However, despite it being a well-made and well-told hero's journey, it is almost nothing more than that. Anyone can notice that it contains some interesting ideas about time, but it also obviously feels limited by the boundaries of the MCU. In fact, it feels difficult to summarize the film's ideas about time, because they are all over the place yet never in-depth. There is a particularly poignant scene about love and time in the middle of the film that immediately qualifies the film as leagues above, say, the uninteresting Guardians of the Galaxy, but the film stops at that. While there are many story references and (unintentional?) visual cues to Batman Begins, the film never rises (no pun intended) to Begins' levels. It is nothing but a shame, as I understand the Marvel's desire to play it safe, but this film really could have been something far greater than what it is now and its potential feels squandered by the studio's fingerprints.
The film tries to position itself as deep and thought-provoking, but its true key to success is its cast. As aforementioned, the cast almost only consists of big names, and the big names deliver. Benedict Cumberbatch is more charismatic and charming than ever and, in my opinion, does a better job here than his Oscar-nominated performance in The Imitation Game. He is the leading man from start to finish and carries the film on his shoulders while making it look like a piece of cake. He breathes life into the film when the screenplay doesn't have much to begin with. Chiwetel Ejiofor is a little modest and a little boring, but I understand why he plays it that way after watching the end-credits sequence. I'm now very excited for his appearance in the sequel. Tilda Swinton is marvelous (no pun intended) and makes the Ancient One a very convincing character, despite the character's mild inconsistencies (Is she strict or not? Why does she punish Doctor Strange but is at times relaxing? What is the logic behind that?). She seemed to enjoy her action sequences a lot which is very delightful to watch. Rachel McAdams is serviceable but she does not have much to work with. She is the typical love interest and I didn't really expect Marvel to do anything interesting with its love interest. It's a flaw that even Nolan couldn't avoid committing.
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| Benedict Cumberbatch is fantastic as the titular hero. |
There really isn't much else to praise, because a Marvel film is expected to be successful in its storytelling. The three-act structure is there and strictly followed, and the audiences are entertained. However, as much as it contains Marvel's pros, it also carries Marvel's cons. The biggest complaint of the MCU is perhaps its flat villains. The villain of Doctor Strange is portrayed by esteemed actor Mads Mikkelsen, but the film is infected with the superhero movie syndrome of covering your actor's face with unnecessary and superfluous make-up or simply not giving the villain time to shine. (See The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, the first Spider-Man, X-Men: Apocalypse... the list goes on and on.) Mikkelsen is severely underused here. The filmmakers clearly understand his abilities and gives him one confrontation in the middle that tries to beef up his character, but it falls flat because the character is not well-established in the first place. Confrontations work with The Joker because the character is well-established in the first act. Scott Derrickson, the director, admits that he tried to make a Joker-level villain but, in retrospect, his words sound laughable. He probably knows what makes a great villain great (e.g. parallels with the protagonist) but he never makes Mikkelsen's character profound or even compelling. Once again, potential to elevate Doctor Strange from the average is squandered.
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| Mads Mikkelsen, smothered in make-up, in a green-screen Hong Kong. |
Another feature that makes MCU films less great than they can be is the humor. MCU films are riddled with humor, possibly in an attempt to balance the drama. Almost everything in the MCU is about balancing things out, playing it safe, and taking care of the needs of everyone. I enjoyed the humor much more than the tasteless humor of Guardians of the Galaxy, but Marvel's addiction to adding humor feels more like a detriment than an icing on the cake. It does produce some laughs (look for a particularly funny Beyoncé joke), but I do think the time could've been spent better on developing the ideas of the story. The same goes for the music – another typical feature of MCU movies, which so far have all contained unmemorable and inconsistent scores. This was explored by video essayist Every Frame a Painting, and kills the MCU's cultural impact. A large part of Star Wars and Harry Potter's success is their leitmotifs, and MCU still lacks one, despite recent attempts to correct this. Even though the good-and-sometimes-great Michael Giacchino was recruited for writing the score, it still doesn't save the film from unmemorable and mostly absent music. I appreciate his attempts at making the music literally strange to fit the film, but I never took notice of it until the credits. It is probably a fault of the editor more than the composer; if recruiting Giacchino and Danny Elfman (for Age of Ultron) still can't solve the MCU's music problems, then it probably lies not in the soundstage but in the editing booth.
Finally, I must address the biggest controversy surrounding the film – the alleged whitewashing of Tilda Swinton's character. Whitewashing has always been a huge problem in Hollywood – while we've moved away from the days of Orson Welles wearing black paint to play Othello, we are still stuck in a time when Christian Bale plays Moses and Scarlett Johansson plays an Asian. Hollywood is obviously uncomfortable with hiring Caucasian actors to play black characters, but seems to be fine with whitewashing Asians or characters of non-black ethnicities. The Ancient One, in the comics of Doctor Strange, is clearly and undoubtedly an Asian. An Asian man, in fact. To hire a Caucasian female for this role is clearly a huge middle finger to the preconceptions of the character. Some comic book fanatics find it frustrating that the film deviates from the source material so fundamentally and their frustrations are perfectly valid. However, challenging the preconceptions of source material is nothing new for film adaptations, and is acceptable if done with reason. It is explained pretty well in the film – "The Ancient One" is a mantle that is passed along instead of a reference to a specific, particular person, and I'm convinced that this wasn't written in just to explain the casting decision. However, even though it is perfectly explainable within the film's logic, it does not make the decision reasonable. I consider the gender-reversal a bold move as Hollywood needs to represent females not only in a sexually enticing way but also in a strong and a traditionally, stereotypically masculine way. With this in mind, there really isn't a point in changing the race of the character as it is not explainable in the way the gender-reversal decision is (Caucasians are not underrepresented). It is not as blatant and shameless as casting a Caucasian and painting him bronze to play a(n arguably historical) Israelite, but it is not far above that. The filmmakers have failed to provide the audiences with a satisfying reason behind this decision other than "the role was written for Tilda Swinton". They can't just racistly want whoever they do and write in a not-so-clever loophole to explain things. There are so many Asian actresses who can handle the role well – Zhang Ziyi, Shu Qi, Michelle Yeoh, just to name a few. The end-product works out fine, Tilda Swinton handles the role superbly, and it is slightly better than the whitewashing in Exodus: Gods and Kings, but we must not ignore the fact that this is still whitewashing. Coming from the world's top studio, it is all the more a shame.
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| The Ancient One from the comics vs. Tilda Swinton's turn as the character. |
Doctor Strange is good, very good, but not great at all. Its marketing may lead you to think that it is intellectual or original, and in some ways, it is, but just very limitedly. It has everything you'd expect from a Marvel film – a solid cast, satisfactory directing and cinematography, clean and polished storytelling – but it also has the flaws that come along with one – tacked-on humor, forgettable music, and a lacking villain. Its slight artistic merits are ironically cancelled out by its whitewashing, and isn't as fun as Captain America: Civil War or as epic as The Avengers, but is at least better than the banal Ant-Man and the tacky Guardians of the Galaxy (sorry, I just really dislike these two). It is a solid 3.5 out of 5, maybe a 4 out of 5, but definitely nothing more than that.