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In
this film however we are introduced to wizards and shit like that, so
I suppose they do deserve a mention along with the film's miracle
health service. Doctor Strange features Benedict CuCumberbatch
as a kooky and unlikeable doctor that, although good at his job, is
cursed with one main flaw. Usually in the case of kooky doctors, this
is the desire to do in a few old ladies with a couple of naughty
injections, but in his case it's actually that he's completely at the
mercy of his own arrogance. Kind of like Justin Bieber, except that
Strange actually has some skill and people aren't just watching him
in the hope that this is the day that the lone gunman has decided to
turn up. Anyway, so Strange gets smashed up in a car accident that
leaves him unable to move his fingers to the degree that he
previously could. Sadly this means he's no longer able to do his job
of fingering people's brains back together and so decides to travel
the world on the hunt for a group of mystics that might be able to
fix him. Essentially, it's another one of those stories in which some
rich bloke goes abroad in search of a very specific kind of hand job.
Except this time he comes back with magical powers and a cool new
cape instead of just hepatitis and a secret from his wife.
Oh,
I suppose I should mention too that the leader of the magical cult
that helps him is the always-brilliant Tilda Swinton, as she sports a
head that's as a bald and smooth as the world's most perfect testicle.
She's having a little trouble right now because one of her old
magical mates has gone rogue and decided to destroy the world.
However to add a little moral ambiguity into the movie, the villain
tells Doctor Strange that actually his plan is to save everybody
rather than harm them. He wants to drag humanity into a dark world in
which we'll all live forever which, he claims, is surely better than
dying, right?! Err no! I appreciate the attempt at adding a little
depth to the story, but beyond the cast of Fame, who the fuck
wants to live forever? Being alive is a miserable enough experience
as it is with the only real thing that keeps me going being the
knowledge that over the next few decades I'll also be able to watch a
few people I hate die too. I'm looking at you, step-mother!
So
this didn't so much as throw an ethical dilemma into the works for me
as much as it did make me want CuCumberbatch's Doctor Strange to do
his job and curb stomp this black-eyed bitch back to hell. Oh, and in
case that made no sense, the character has demonic black eyes to help
let you know that he's actually evil. If you needed another clue then
he's also played by Mads Mikkelsen. As ever, Doctor Strange
seems to suffer the same problem
that all non-Loki-featuring Marvel movies do in that their villain
isn't quite as well developed as it should be. Which isn't to say that
I don't love Mikkelsen, of course. It's just that any impact the
character does have is really as a result of his own eye-bleedingly
brilliant talent. However the issue that this film does address is
that of Marvel's constant problems with its films third acts. Does it
end with an aerial fight over a city? Yes? Then it must be a film in
the MCU! However in the case of Doctor Strange,
this is avoided in favour of a more psychedelic and seemingly
self-aware nod to Groundhog Day which
is a little more original. It's also ironic because since Iron
Man was first released in 2008,
it's pretty much felt like we've all been stuck with the same fucking
ending happening over and over and over again.
And
speaking of Iron Man, I
suppose that's the one film in the MCU that Doctor Strange
is the closest to. Both main
characters are geniuses, arrogant, ego-driven, and flippant- or to
summarise.. they're both twats. However by travelling a fairly
formulaic origin path, they both head towards developing a little
self-awareness and a sense of how insignificant they are in the
grand scheme of things. Of course had they both wanted to find out
how little their lives mean in the grand scheme of things, they could
have saved a lot of time by simply having a drink with my stupid
fucking family. What differs the two films however are the visuals
and feel of Doctor Strange, which
is as trippy as shit. A lazy person would say that the makers of this
movie must have been on drugs. But it's Hollywood.. of course they're
on drugs. I mean, Christ.. if I'd been involved in the God awful
London Has Fallen, then
you'd definitely find my bloated
corpse washed up on a beach after a fucking heroin overdose.
At
one point, Strange goes through a sequence that I can only describe as
being like what a hippy might experience if they licked a tropical
frog and then drank the contents of their lava lamp. He flies through
a serious of colours as though letting a rainbow fart paint into his
face after it's tripped its balls on some bath-salts. Oh and in what
might sound like a failed attempt to write some lyrics by The
Beatles, his fingers grow hands that grow little hands from their
fingers. Imagine a cross between Inception and that advert in
which everything that bloke touches turns to skittles and you're not
too far off what this movie looks like. On the face of it, this is a
by-the-books origin story, however due to the special effects and
visual design, it becomes the movie equivalent of trying to see the
mystical picture after getting stoned and playing with a magic-eye
picture. The cast are all great too, with Cucumberbatch proving that
not only can he play a pain-in-the-arse genius in Sherlock but
that he can also play a pain-in-the-arse genius with an American
accent. What a range. This is The Big Trouble In Little China of
the MCU in that it's the magical little oddity that stands out due to
its weirdness. It might not be up there with this years Civil War,
but as a slice of blockbuster silliness then by the Hoary hosts
of Hoggoth, Marvel don't half put the 'Marvel' into that was fucking
marvellous. Thanks for reading and see you again, motherfuckers.
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