Doctor Strange

RATING: A-

As we've gone through this Marvel Cinematic Universe, we've all been thinking, "Okay, at *some* point they're going to screw up and make an actually bad movie. Right? Right?" Granted, we've had a couple that were below average compared to the others, but none of them have straight up failed yet. If the improbable success of Ant-Man didn't silence the naysayers, then Doctor Strange ought to do it for good.

Ant-Man was just a rather lame superhero that Marvel Studios somehow made cool (or at least decent); in part by not taking the movie too seriously. Doctor Strange, on the other hand, isn't so much lame as he is complicated. He is a sorcerer, with abilities including traveling between dimensions and universes, manipulating time and opening portals. Lots and lots of portals. Making his movie good without it being incomprehensible or just weird was going to be quite difficult.

If you're not familiar with Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch)--like pretty much everyone else who watches these movies but doesn't read comics--he begins off as a talented surgeon; with an ego and levels of narcissism that would make even Tony Stark *before* Iron Man happened raise an eyebrow. But when he gets in a car accident that puts him out of his line of work, he is forced to look for answers elsewhere. And he somehow ends up in Nepal. Learning the mystic arts from the Ancient One. And he goes through his own Iron Man-esque transformation of sorts into a different kind of superhero. If he can even be called a superhero, that is.

Somehow, despite the odds being quite frankly against them on this one, Marvel somehow managed to pull this off. Doctor Strange is a surprisingly entertaining and amusing movie that actually makes almost as much sense as it can. Much like some of the other Marvel movies, it's actually often quite light-hearted; which helps out its case. Even Strange's final ultimatum to a certain antagonist is more humorous than anything. The time travel is kept to a relative minimum, so there aren't any weird paradoxes or anything like that. The visuals are astounding (even though sometimes they're "out there" enough to make even the titular character ask if it's LSD). The cast is pretty solid, led by Benedict Cumberbatch making another strong role for himself, rounded out by Tilda Swinton, Benedict Wong, and Mads Mikkelsen.

If there's one thing about this movie that's actually annoying, it's that there are a few scenes where some dimension warping (or something) is done through use of kaleidoscope effects. This is actually done during action scenes a couple times, and those scenes are a little bit difficult to keep up with at times. Thankfully, they don't consume the majority of it, so it's more of a passing annoyance than anything. Of course, there's also some mystical mumbo jumbo every now and then in the dialogue (as well as medical mumbo jumbo) that occasionally can be hard to follow.

Doctor Strange is arguably the movie that should finally have broken the Marvel Studios streak. If they'd done a few things differently--such as not making the movie light-hearted or using those weird kaleidoscope effects the *whole* movie or not casting Cumberbatch--it would've probably fallen apart, and since the whole "magic" thing may play into future Marvel movies, it would've been a big problem for them. But they've succeeded once again. After surprising us with Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man (even if the latter was one of their "lesser" efforts), we probably should've learned by now; but if Doctor Strange doesn't make you learn to give them the benefit of the doubt from here on out, probably nothing will.