Doctor Strange (2016)
Magic in the MCU is a strange beast, one that generally has to be handled with care. Wanda’s powers were, at one point, explained in a fairly scientific way, something about brain waves and the like. Thor’s tech looks like magic to us, but is clearly some kind of applied science. However, it’d be a lot harder for one to do such justifications with Doctor Strange, an out-and-out sorcerer. He’s been magic since he first saw the pages of a comic book, and trying to explain it away would take a lot of work.
In Doctor Strange, the titular doctor (yes, his last name is actually Strange) survives a horrific car crash, but loses the greater functions of his hands. While scouring the Earth for something, anything to give him back his life’s work, he gets desperate enough to go to Kamar-Taj, headquarters of the sorcerers of the world. His skepticism is quickly dashed when their leader, the Ancient One, Sorcerer Supreme, shows him how insignificant he really is, and thus, he begins trying to master the mystic arts.
Meanwhile, a sorcerer named Kaecilius has gone rogue and is attempting to tap into the darker side of the magical arts, in an attempt to rid mankind of death. To do so, he wishes to make a pact with Dormammu, an outer god who hungers for Earth’s power more than anywhere else. The sorcerers have been warding against him for centuries, but Kaecilius threatens to let him in. Strange eventually gets tangled up in his war, as forces he can’t even yet comprehend start to make a bid for Earth.
Benedict Cumberbatch has clearly carved a niche for himself, as he’s now the guy who thinks he’s in the right, and will do anything to prove it. Sherlock, Kahn, and now Doctor Stephen Strange. He kills it, of course, and he’s also surrounded by an equally-talented cast, with Rachel McAdams, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, and a personal favorite of mine, Mads Mikkelsen. Someday, I’ll have to review Death Stranding, but I digress.
The biggest factor of this movie, as I mentioned at the top, is that it is well-and-truly about magic. The movie puts on no airs to convince you otherwise. The closest we get is the Ancient One, fearing that magical theorem might “offend {Strange’s} modern sensibilities”, instead frames it as if he dealing with the source code of reality. In doing so, everything from here on out can be handwaved as magic, though they do a pretty good job of avoiding such problems. After all, even the comics can struggle with power creep, something that the MCU doesn’t truly butt up against until Captain Marvel (though I think they manage it well with her, as well).
It’s a nice touch that, for almost the entirety of the movie, Strange’s weapons are imperfect and abstract, as he has no combat experience.
The conflict at hand is, on the surface, a standard “save the world” plot, but it actually does much more legwork when it comes to Strange himself. He is, from the onset, a narcissistic, pedantic, insufferable genius, and he undergoes much humbling as the movie goes on, starting with his car crash, and reaching a head in his final conversation with the Ancient One. The simple phrase “it’s not about you",” is, for example, a great revelation for Stephen, which should probably tell you what exactly his outlook is like.
The other running theme is the concept of mortality, which is actually given to us from both sides of the conflict. To Kaecilius, with magic in the world, the fact that humanity must still fear their deaths is an insult to the greatness of the species. In this sense, he’s not necessarily wrong - why must death loom when we can simply banish it from our lives forever? On the other side, we see the weight and consequences of a life long lived with the Ancient One. I won’t spoil much about her, as she’s shrouded in mystery for much of the movie, but her name should make it clear that she is centuries old at this point, and her mindset and experiences are colored by such longevity.
Sometimes, the greater themes are headier than the movie that tackles them, but I actually like how these things are approached with Doctor Strange. The man himself doesn’t have to deal with such things, and truly just wants to use his hands again. However, these things come for him still, and the idea of mortality especially weighs heavy on a man who has sworn the Hippocratic Oath. After all, war is a whole different place than a hospital room, and the moment he starts to get his hands dirty with it, he is understandably adverse.
This humanizing element is actually part of why I love the character of Doctor Strange so much. He’s good, and lawdy does he know it, but he still has things he can’t do, and while they at first make him bitter, this film’s events, as well as the larger events of the Infinity War, start to help him realize that his big head is only blocking the path forward.
Multiverse of Madness is possibly my favorite in the entirety of Marvel, but I’m also a horror nut, and it’s the closest to horror the MCU has gotten so far. Regardless, it’ll be some time before I get to it, but this film, a movie about a man who has to reconcile with his miniscule place in the world, sits high on the shelf for me as well. I love Doctor Strange, and for the longest time, it was my fave.
In the meantime, please. Don’t text and drive.
