--Stephen Strange, Doctor Strange
"You think you know how the world works? You think that this material universe is all there is? What is real? What mysteries lie beyond the reach of your senses? At the root of existence, mind and matter meet. Thoughts form reality. This universe is only one of an infinite number. Worlds without end; some benevolent and life-giving, others filled with malice and hunger. Dark places where powers older than time lie, ravenous and waiting. Who are you in this vast multiverse, Mr. Strange?"
--The Ancient One, Doctor Strange
Director Scott Derrickson did it. He designed a Marvel movie that defied many of the cliches which are expected at this point, and one that is genuinely intellectual and mind-bending in a non-forced way. What was successful about the movie and what did I enjoy? Continue reading to learn.
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Production Values
Wow. To say this movie has fine production values would be a massive understatement. Excellent would be a more fitting word. Benedict Cumberbatch absolutely nails the role of Stephen Strange, perfectly embodying the arrogant doctor who develops drastically different priorities and a very different worldview as the film progresses. His performance exudes humor, authenticity, and, when necessary, great amounts of arrogance. Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One is another acting highlight; she is perfect for the role! I understand that The Ancient One in the comics was not even a female, but now I will always imagine Tilda's character when I think of The Ancient One. Her performance is very convincing and appropriately enigmatic. Mads Mikkelsen, whom I eagerly want to see in Rogue One this December, did not have much screen time and played a villain who could have been much more developed (as usual with many MCU villains), but the few scenes where he speaks revealed a far more sophisticated motivation for his character than I expected. Were Kaecilius played by anyone other than Mikkelsen, I may have thought less of the character.
The CGI environments sometimes resemble those in Inception, but they are certainly trippy and mind-bending, showcasing fantastic effects work that clearly distinguishes the visuals of Doctor Strange from anything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) so far. A great script also benefits the story immensely, complementing the great casting and unique special effects. The production values are of a very high quality.
Story
"Hypocrite!"
This is what Kaecilius, the movie's primary villain, accuses a robed woman of being in the opening scenes. Within the first few minutes viewers learn two things: 1) in this world people wield what appears to be sophisticated magic and 2) the successful and talented Dr. Stephen Strange is an arrogant a--hole, but an intelligent one. Able to engage in medical procedures with skill and precision, Stephen demonstrates that he is a knowledgable and experienced doctor, though his relationships with others suffer because of his pride.
Despite all of his ability, his own carelessness quickly leads to a vehicle accident that realistically seems like it should have killed Stephen yet merely robs him of stable hands instead. Searching for a miraculous route to recovery so he can resume his occupation as a doctor with a perfect medical operation record, he pursues a source of potential help he otherwise would have scoffed at: a hope of spiritual guidance found in an area where more spiritual people may be able to assist him in mending his body. Actually, when he finds the location he is searching for, he still scoffs as a bald Celtic woman called The Ancient One informs him that his philosophical assumptions about the universe and himself are incorrect. She wants to heal him through a seemingly New Age approach instead of by using science, and Strange objects and disputes with her naive views until she reaches out, strikes him, and catapults his spirit from his body, allowing him several moments to marvel (get it? MARVEL?) at his empty physical shell and the disembodied inner soul he never believed he had.
Fortunately for The Ancient One, she has a new apprentice, which is quite useful because she and a group of sorcerer students plan to fight a rogue sorcerer named Kaecilius, the man who challenged The Ancient One in the film's first scene.
And I'll conclude this section without spoilers but by still stating that the story was engaging and exciting and that the climactic end fight was much more unique than the generic scenes found in many other superhero movies where the superheroes confront villains who are opening or have opened portals to the sky. Bravos, Derrickson.
Intellectual Content
I want to mention at the beginning of this section that the director of this movie is an open Christian who has directed several Christian horror projects (no, that's not an oxymoron) and who had interesting thoughts about directing Doctor Strange as a Christian [1] when the source material revolves around the more fantastical elements of Marvel.
One of those elements is the existence of the multiverse, a hypothetical model of the cosmos featuring multiple or an infinite number of universes. Ironically, I had just written about the concept of the multiverse around the same time I first watched Doctor Strange [2]. I enjoyed not only that the idea of the multiverse was in the movie but that the multiverse was used to promote an anti-naturalism message, whereas most scientists who believe in the multiverse use it as a far-fetched defense for naturalism. The Ancient One launched Stephen into the multiverse (how is uncertain) to reveal to him that it does not logically follow that something is not false or imaginary just because his senses do not perceive it, because his intellect is unaware of it, or because he is personally incredulous about it. After having his astral form released by The Ancient One and being thrown into visions of the infinite multiverse, Stephen decided to adapt his worldview to what he now knew to be true.
Of course, his first dramatic experience with his astral/spirit form ends with The Ancient One recalling him to his body. Upon regaining his body after floating around for several moments, Stephen asks if LSD was in the tea he drank before experiencing involuntary astral projection. Obviously, he had assumed that he was drugged instead of even acknowledging the possibility that he had felt his consciousness leave his physical body. Assumptions interfere with the pursuit of true knowledge, and Stephen eventually learns of his error. This highlights the importance of making no assumptions when attempting to verify a worldview. Do not beg the question for or against a claim. By the way, I found it hilarious that someone as allegedly intelligent as Stephen would ever make a laughably unscientific claim like "We are made of matter and nothing more." It is a claim that reason refutes in full. Rationalism can never lead to naturalism; it reveals it to be objectively false. Logic and consciousness--which cannot be illusory--are strictly immaterial things.
The Ancient One tells Strange that "Your intellect has taken you far in life, but it will take you no further." The movie does not have an anti-intellect theme but it does imply that there are truths, and significant truths at that, which are inaccessible to most people and which they will likely only accept when shown them instead of merely being verbally told about them.
Now it's time to address a point I know has surfaced in Christian circles.
While Christian film "critic" Ted Baehr has attacked Doctor Strange for the prominence of sorcery in the movie, I dispute the position that it is a movie Christians should avoid. First of all, as readers of this blog will know, there is no obvious reason why cinematic depictions of sin are sinful to watch. The Bible contains narratives which tell of graphic violence, kidnapping, brutal rape, and torture, yet Christians are sometimes opposed to simple appearances of minor profanity in movies. Not only is the depiction of things like violence or sorcery not immoral at all in and of itself [3], but I can make a very reasonable case that the "sorcery" in Doctor Strange is not the kind condemned in Mosaic Law (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27, Deuteronomy 18:9-11). Sorcery in the Bible is an act of idolatry, and perhaps of malice as well, that occurs when one taps into dark spiritual powers derived from demonic origins. The sorcery prohibited in Mosaic Law has undeniable ties to the supernatural (see the verses I mentioned above). But this is very different than the type of spells used and referenced in Doctor Strange. Whereas the kind in the Bible is a result of communicating or aligning with supernatural entities, the type of "magic" in the newest MCU entry has nothing to do with the supernatural--in the sense that it is not derived from a spiritual source, but a natural one. The Ancient One speaks about how the spells that she and her companions cast simply are manifestations of energy from other areas within the multiverse, meaning the "magic" is derived from the natural, material world and has nothing to do with any malevolent or demonic spiritual forces. In other words, the characters are not wielding magic that is necessarily related to the kind described as evil in the Bible; it is a completely different form of "sorcery." Also, I don't want to hear any Christian that loves The Lord of the Rings and the character Gandalf condemn Doctor Strange. That's called hypocrisy, and Christians that I know generally excel at displaying it.
(SPOILER)
Dormammu's timeless realm in the "dark dimension" seems to make no scientific or theological sense. Time did not exist before the creation of the material world--modern cosmology and the Bible agree on this--yet in the Doctor Strange universe somehow there is an area in the freaking material world where time does not exist. How could the Big Bang produce a universe/multiverse in time and then somehow create an area without time within that multiverse when time and space are connected and were created together? I mean, the only being that is timeless in the strictest sense of the word is what we call God, since he existed prior to the Big Bang (though other spiritual beings would be outside of time as well but they were still created). Now, when Stephen enters the dark dimension to "bargain" with Dormammu you could clearly see that things move as if time is elapsing, which indicates that the dark dimension still acts like it is in time. Marvel movie apologists might suggest that Strange had introduced time to Dormammu and thus because of the presence of time during the "bargaining" time loop scene particles and objects moved as they only can in time. However, the movie never clarified so I'm still calling scientific and theological BS. But . . . that was still a funny scene.
Conclusion
Scott Derrickson has crafted a masterful addition to the MCU that delivered, thankfully, everything the MCU needed at this stage. Which is stage 3 to be precise. Ok, that was a Marvel joke. I know it's actually phase 3. With numerous past movies exploring the origin stories of various superheroes, I wasn't sure if Doctor Strange would deviate from the rather formulaic story structure of past entries and represent a creative new direction, but it definitely succeeded in doing so. While recent Marvel origin films like Ant Man are entertaining but basically retellings of older stories with different characters (in this case, Ant Man was Iron Man with a different protagonist and different technology), Doctor Strange distinguishes itself from other superhero movies quite effectively with its unique visuals, abnormal thematic material, and clever ending. I was pleasantly surprised and definitely entertained.
Content
1. Violence: There is not much violence in the film. Several people are killed in non-graphic ways on or off-screen.
2. Profanity: Occasionally a character will drop the word "sh-t", but the profanity is infrequent.
[1]. http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/film/director-strange
[2]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-multiverse-part-1.html
[3]. Christians should be more concerned about what worldview a film portrays sin with than what sins are actually shown, as there is nothing sinful about showing any sin (Deuteronomy 4:2). Judging how much violence or terror can be placed in a movie before the film has gone "too far" is a hopelessly subjective exercise, with Christians often arbitrarily drawing nonexistent personal lines at random points and then trying to enforce their subjective convictions as objective moral boundaries for all people.
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