Cast. Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen, Tilda Swinton, Benedict Wong.
Rating. 54%
The first seven or eight minutes of Dr Strange were, at the time, some of the most technically accomplished CGI effects brought to the big screen by Marvel. The exchange between the zealots of Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) and The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) whilst buildings fold around them like origami is a significant evolution of the city-bending sequence in Inception.
Unfortunately, the stunning CGI effects are paired with scant action. At this point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the superhero origin story was starting to become a little repetitive and formulaic. The eponymous Dr Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a narcissistic, arrogant and self-absorbed neurosurgeon who must travel to Kamar-Taj to find himself and come to terms with his new-found powers.
Mads Mikkelsen is criminally underused as Kaecilius, but the stand out performance in Dr Strange is from Tilda Swinton (as The Ancient One). The subdued and, at times, minimalistic performance is on point. She doesn't waste words. She doesn't show emotion. And her efficiency of movement and vocabulary gives rise to an effortless portrayal of the Sorcerer Supreme. All this amidst the controversy surrounding the film's whitewashing and the MCU's continued lack of diversity. In the 1960's Marvel Comic Books, The Ancient One was depicted as an Asian male, of Tibetan descent, and a fairly derogative and stereotypical one at that.
As a result, Dr Strange is one of the weaker origin stories in the MCU.
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