essay about doctor strange

The Film “Doctor Strange” Essay

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Doctor Strange is a film that appeared on the screens this year and attracted enormous attention. It is based on a story of the superhero character that appears in Marvel Comics that is why its audience mainly includes those people who are fond of commixes and fantastic events. In addition to that, the main character is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who has numerous fans due to his role in the popular TV series Sherlock . As a result, many people came to the cinema to see him.

The film was screened during the whole day, but while booking a ticket, I noticed that the audience preferred to come in the evening. Teenagers and young adults gathered to meet a prominent neurosurgeon, Stephen Strange, who lost his ability to work after a car accident and entered the world of magic in his search for healing. Even though I went to the cinema when the film had already been screened for a while, it was crowded. As far as I noticed, all seats were occupied, which proves that many people waited for it.

Of course, it is impossible to appeal to everyone, but Doctor Strange managed to receive the dominant majority of positive comments. The reporter of The Guardian mentioned that this film appealed to the audience and critics due to the excellent work of its director and casting. She stated that it impressed the public with its sharp wit and is “the most brain-meltingly effective piece of psychedelic cinema since Peter Fonda got himself comprehensively wigged out in The Trip ” (Ide par. 1). Financial information supports such claim, as with the production budget of $165 million, the film has received more than $215 million in the USA and more than $635 million worldwide for one month (“Doctor Strange”).

Doctor Strange was advertised in different ways. At first, two posters and the first trailer appeared on the Internet approximately at the same time. They were followed by a special banner and a series of character posters. Then the second trailer appeared. The official website was also created. Much information was available on social media, and the cast would speak about the film on different shows. I saw several big posters in the cinema and also watched trailers as previews that are shown before other films that are already screened. There were several different posters in the lobby as well so that it was impossible to miss it.

Personally, I enjoyed the film because I like fantasy stories. My friends who came with me to the cinema were also positively impressed. This movie is a combination of several genres, such as action, adventure, fantasy, and Sci-Fi, which gives it an opportunity to appeal to the diverse audience (“Doctor Strange (2016)”). What is more critical, it was produced by Marvel Studios, just like many other films about superheroes that appealed to me. Actually, this fact convinced me to watch the movie.

The origin story is of high quality just like other works of Marvel Comics. This movie is already the second adaptation, as there was a series of animated films. The plot that was co-written by the director, Scott Derrickson, is also impressive. It includes lots of humor and makes the audience sympathize with the characters. The actors played their roles naturally and were not confused even in the graphically changed enrolment. Visual quality was great, and it seemed that Cumberbatch really had an opportunity to interact with a magic cloak because it did not differ from other objects.

The audio was appropriately selected. It appealed to people’s emotions and did not interfere with them. Visual and audio quality in the theater screening room was appropriate, but sometimes the music was too loud. The editing style and pacing appealed to me. I was able to grasp the characters’ facial expressions and observe their group interactions. All in all, I believe this film to be of good quality, and I am totally satisfied with it.

“ Doctor Strange .” Box Office Mojo , 2016. Web.

“Doctor Strange (2016).” IMDb , 2016. Web.

Ide, Wendy. “ Doctor Strange Review – Sharp Wit and Spiritual Popcorn .” The Guardian . 2016. Web.

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IvyPanda . 2020. "The Film "Doctor Strange"." September 2, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-film-doctor-strange/.

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Review: ‘Doctor Strange’ and His Most Excellent Adventure

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By Manohla Dargis

• Nov. 3, 2016

Most Marvel movies open like Robert Downey Jr.’s stand-up routine in “Iron Man” before it goes south. They deliver quips and silky come-hither nonsense, only to end up like a big green monster stuck on rewind: “Hulk smash!” again and again, ad infinitum. In between start and finish, there are moments of levity and discovery in the machined product, but too often you can’t see the movie for Marvel’s action plan. Its latest, the giddily enjoyable “Doctor Strange,” is part of Marvel’s strategy for world domination, yet it’s also so visually transfixing, so beautiful and nimble that you may even briefly forget the brand.

You don’t need to know Dr. Strange to know his story. A tale of hubris — with foolish pride and an inevitable fall — it opens in contemporary New York, where Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), is flying high as a supersurgeon. After a crippling accident, he abandons his old life (partly embodied by Rachel McAdams, dewy and funny) for a grand exploit, traveling simultaneously into his soul and to the misterioso Far East. He meets leaders and fellow travelers, studies books and unlocks secrets, in time becoming a superhero with magical powers, a dubious goatee and a flirty cape that dries his tears.

Movie Review: ‘Doctor Strange’

The times critic manohla dargis reviews “doctor strange.”.

In “Doctor Strange,” Benedict Cumberbatch portrays a surgeon who learns how to bend reality after a crippling accident. In her review, Manohla Dargis writes: The giddily enjoyable “Doctor. Strange,” is part of Marvel’s strategy for world domination, yet it’s also so visually transfixing, so beautiful and nimble that you may even briefly forget the brand. Dr. Strange’s voyage of self-discovery is as old as the ancients where men become near-gods while training amid hazy, low-key lighting. The director Scott Derrickson and his crew push the medium’s plasticity, creating spaces that bend, splinter and multiply. The movie’s more lysergic sections are followed with carefully aligned narrative bricks and mortar and sometimes sealed with a quip, as if to reassure you that there’s nothing too far out about any of this.

Dr. Strange first popped out of the glorious head of Steve Ditko, the comic-book visionary who brought him to life with Stan Lee (a pairing best known for Spider-Man). Dr. Strange’s travels east evoke the inner and outer magical mystery tours of the 1960s, summoning visions of head-tripping and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” In a, well, yes, strange bit of timing, Dr. Strange appeared in 1963, around the time Harvard fired Timothy Leary and a colleague for conducting experiments with hallucinogens. Five years later, in Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” the Merry Prankster Ken Kesey was downing acid and absorbed in “the plunging purple Steve Ditko shadows of Dr. Strange.”

“Doctor Strange” tethers its plunging purples, acid greens and altered states to a hero’s journey with its call to adventure, its mentor, its allies and its enemies. After his crisis, Dr. Strange lands in Nepal, where he meets a guide (Chiwetel Ejiofor, as brooding and sincere as Hamlet). There, he studies the way of the hero with the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), a Celtic sorcerer, who in the comics emerged from the Himalayas and the West’s long fascination with, and appropriation of, Eastern mysticism. (The screenwriter C. Robert Cargill has said that some of the changes involving the sorcerer, originally from Tibet, stemmed from concerns that depictions of Tibetans might anger China, a movie market powerhouse.)

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”Doctor Strange”: Description and Interpretation

Description, interpretation, works cited.

Doctor Strange, a 2016 action-fantasy film, existing exists as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Created as a part of an ongoing series of films, this movie manages to both tell its own, unique story and provide a set upsetup for future installations in the franchise. The plot follows Dr. Steven Strange, a prodigal, but egotistical surgeon. After losing control of his hands in an accident, the man is unable to do his work properly and falls into a serious depression, breaking ties with the woman he loves. Having exhausted all available options, the man travels to a factional city in Nepal. Upon arrival, Strange finds himself involved with a secret organization that uses mystic powers outside of human logic. Having received training and spiritual guidance, the man learns magic arts and becomes involved in a fight against evil.

It is especially interesting to discuss the role Asian mysticism plays in the movie. Many of the concepts employed by the filmmakers are borrowed from existing systems of belief and eastern cultures. Although the organization, Kamar-Taj, is entirely fictional, it uses established preconceptions of mystical powers. Concepts such as meditation, astral projection, eternal struggles between good and evil, and many others are all a part of the fictional movement and are rooted in oriental culture. Spells used by the character are in Sanskrit and contain references to the Hindu myth (Perry). Even the clothing choices of the characters affiliated with Kamar-Taj reflect that. This movie introduces many of non-western spiritual concepts to the general audience and makes the topic approachable and curious to the viewer. Generally, concepts of eastern philosophy used in pop-culture are seen by westerners as exotic, and the film capitalizes on that to deliver its message.

The story of the movie is constrained by the need to fit within an established cinematic universe and appeal to the common viewer. Mystic and cultural aspects of the oriental culture are briefly explored in service of keeping a reasonable pace and runtime.

It seems like the spiritual aspects of the film was severely underexplored, although utilized in an interesting manner. The practices of spirituality and mysticism are used by the movie primarily to offset the beliefs of the main character and are not deeply explored. The film often chooses to throw abstract concepts and ideas at the audience without commitment to fully dwelling on them. Much of the substance of Kamar-Taj’s belief system and teaching is shown to contrast with the materialistic outlook of Steven Strange (Chichizola). While the Dichotomy created by this approach is interesting to observe, it does not allow the audience to fully grasp the structure and beliefs of the organization. The spiritual practices of the film also suffer because of its inherent nature as an action movie. The need to portray dynamic events, keep the audience engaged, and tell a dynamic story leaves no time for the deeper concepts to be explored. Dr. Strange’s time training is interrupted by the arrival of the villain and his supporters, and after that point, the film does not have the ability to return back to established concepts. Overall, many of the themes, set pieces, and practices of mysticism are only used as a justification for the main character’s superpowers. Strange’s training at Kamar-Taj gives him some interesting backstory but does not have much bearing on his subsequent life. The film is more content in focusing on the personal drama of the man and his struggle to combat evil.

My critique focuses on the spiritual aspects of the movie instead of analyzing the plot, characters or themes, making it substantially different from other reviews.

Perry, Allie. “Dr. Strange: Mysticism, Magic and Marvel.” The Hub , 2016, Web.

Chichizola, Corey. “What Doctor Strange Is Really About, According To The Director.” CINEMABLEND , CINEMABLEND, 2018, Web.

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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

The modern Marvel sequel is as multi-armed as Doctor Strange casting a spell. Think about how many properties are being sequel-ed in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” It’s a sequel to “ Doctor Strange ,” although just barely in that you probably need to have seen that film less than the Strange adventures that followed. It’s a sequel to “ Avengers: Endgame ” and “ Spider-Man: No Way Home ” in that it references action in both films and extrapolates somewhat on the universe-saving decision that the title character made in the former. It’s very much a sequel to “WandaVision,” the show that expanded the Marvel Cinematic Universe into television. And, for a particular generation, it’s kind of a sequel to when Sam Raimi was one of the most badass filmmakers alive. Perhaps all of these allegiances are at the root of why “Multiverse of Madness” never develops its own identity and depth. It’s a Frankenmovie, a blockbuster sewn together from pieces of other films, comic books, and TV shows and given life with the electricity of a Marvel budget. After a dreadfully long build-up, “Doctor Strange 2” gains some momentum thanks to Raimi’s visual flair, but even that runs out. You really can’t go home again.

Spoilers will be very light. Don’t worry.

Dr. Stephen Strange is attending the wedding of his unrequited love Christine Palmer ( Rachel McAdams ) when chaos erupts in the street outside (and the fact that Michael Stuhlbarg ’s name is on the poster for his single, early-movie scene at the wedding feels like an agent’s coup). A massive octopus-like creature is chasing a girl named America Chavez ( Xochitl Gomez ) across dimensions, causing chaos along the way. Strange and Wong ( Benedict Wong ) leap into action to save the girl and learn that America is sought for her ability to traverse alternate universes, although she can’t really control when she does so. Strange suspects that witchcraft may be involved, which leads him to seek the guidance of Wanda ( Elizabeth Olsen ), who is still reeling from the loss of her children at the end of the Disney+ show and under the spell of the evil Darkhold, a book of evil spells that Raimi fans will probably note looks a lot like the Necronomicon. Wanda is willing to do whatever it takes to live in the universe where she still has her children (although Vision’s existence is barely referenced), which unleashes chaos for Strange, Wong, and America that involves Mordo ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ), a few classic characters, and, well, some new faces with familiar names.

There’s a sequence relatively early in “Multiverse of Madness” wherein Strange and America fly through alternate universes, including one that looks animated and one where their bodies are made of paint. I got excited. I thought after what felt like an interminable set-up that Raimi and company were about to blow up the Marvel formula machine and make a live-action film that felt like “ Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse .” Imagine that. A visual artist like Raimi with a modern MCU budget and complete creative freedom.

You’ll have to imagine it because this movie isn’t interested in that kind of potential. “Multiverse of Madness” is a film that constantly pushes back against its own possibilities. It’s got a plot that could have creatively surprised viewers over and over with new variations on the very concept of a world with heroes in it and a director willing to go there. But it’s very clearly a product of a content machine, fighting against its own self-interests because it’s scared to alienate any of the millions of potential viewers. The sense that these movies only feign interest in being “strange” when they’re about as normal as can be makes them all the more frustrating. Both “WandaVision” and “Loki” took more creative risks. Significantly.

Which makes it a double-edged sword when the Sam Raimi who directed “ Spider-Man 2 ” and “Evil Dead 2” comes out to play about halfway through and then really gets going in the final act. Without spoilers, “Multiverse of Madness” starts to involve the walking dead, and the Raimi who revolutionized the horror genre proves he still has some life left in him. There are some creatively staged and executed action sequences in “Multiverse of Madness” that only could have been made by the director of “ Drag Me to Hell ,” and those moments are easily the film’s highlights and almost rescue it. One just wishes it didn’t take so long to get to them and that they weren’t tethered to a movie that too often doesn’t have any idea what to do with that energy.

Instead of letting “Multiverse of Madness” take creative flight, the story keeps coming back to incredibly shallow character traits like Wanda’s grief, Strange’s unspoken love for Christine, or America’s uncertainty about her own powers. None of these resonate. The character arcs here are so remarkably weak that the performances suffer too. Cumberbatch is fine, but he’s a victim of a film that’s so plot-heavy that he’s mostly just running from one CGI sequence to the next. And I’m eager to see what the charismatic Gomez can do with a much stronger character. Listen, I know MCU movies aren’t generally places for deep character work—I’m just saying it’s even more shallow here than normal, especially considering how the typically reliable Olsen nailed this character in her previous outing. It’s sad to see her and the character take a step back instead of exploring the ideas in the show that bore her name.

By the time that “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was pulling out the universe-bending scenes that will probably be spoiled by Friday afternoon, I started to wonder if there’s a breaking point to these CGI orgies that serve so many other properties they forget to be interesting on their own. There have been complaints about MCU properties that feel like they exist merely to get people interested in the next movie or TV show, but it’s never felt so much like a snake eating its own tail as it does here. Or at least the spell has worn off for me.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange / Sinister Strange / Defender Strange
• Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / The Scarlet Witch
• Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mordo / Master Mordo
• Benedict Wong as Wong / Defender Wong
• Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez
• Rachel McAdams as Dr. Christine Palmer
• Michael Stuhlbarg as Dr. Nicodemus West
• Julian Hilliard as Billy Maximoff
• Jett Klyne as Tommy Maximoff
• Bob Murawski
• Danny Elfman

Cinematographer

• John Mathieson
• Michael Waldron

Writer (based on the Marvel comics by)

• Steve Ditko

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Film Review: ‘Doctor Strange’

In the increasingly cookie-cutter realm of Marvel comic-book movies, a little strange goes a long way.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Although Marvel Studios ’ “Doctor Strange” offers very few insights into the childhood of its main character, applying what we know about bullying on American schoolyards, it’s safe to assume it wasn’t easy growing up with a name like Stephen Strange. Perhaps that explains the complex that has driven Strange (that rare superhero who keeps his name after acquiring his incredible new powers) to become such an arrogant New York neurosurgeon, flaunting his skills at work and his Lamborghini Huracán outside the office.

Cut from the same mold as playboys Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Bruce Wayne (Batman), Strange easily might have become world’s most insufferable superhero. But instead, it’s the very fact of this deeply insecure and wildly overcompensating character’s determination to prove himself — coupled with the setback by which texting while driving cripples his hands and very nearly derails him of that ambition — that makes “Doctor Strange” Marvel’s most satisfying entry since “Spider-Man 2,” and a throwback to M. Night Shyamalan’s soul-searching identity-crisis epic “Unbreakable,” which remains the gold standard for thinking people’s superhero movies.

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Yes, this new project shares the same look, feel, and fancy corporate sheen as the rest of Marvel’s rapidly expanding Avengers portfolio, but it also boasts an underlying originality and freshness missing from the increasingly cookie-cutter comic-book realm of late. From this second-tier side character, the studio has created a thrilling existential dilemma in which its flawed hero’s personal search for purpose dovetails beautifully with forays into the occult New Age realm of magic and sorcery where Doctor Strange ultimately finds his calling.

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While producer Kevin Feige deserves credit for bringing a master plan to Marvel’s big-screen slate, recruiting A-list talent on both sides of the camera and holding them to aesthetic standards that unify the various projects, those parameters are starting to feel every bit as restrictive as real-world physics can be to less-than-super movies. Like the original pulp comics, which were printed with a standard four-color process that permitted a very limited palette, Marvel movies are all starting to look and sound the same, boasting bright primary colors, magic-hour lighting, and bombastic orchestral scores.

Generally speaking, there’s less room for directors to experiment when introducing new heroes, and yet Doctor Strange’s tangential standing within the Marvel canon allows a welcome degree of freedom, while the supernatural dimension of his gifts permits filmmaker Scott Derrickson to bend the rules a bit more than his peers — not enough, some would argue. Like “Spider-Man” director Sam Raimi, Derrickson hails from the world of schlock horror, where he made such seat-jumpers as “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and “Sinister,” and here, he transitions smoothly to a far bigger canvas (so big that Imax audiences will benefit from more than an hour of footage captured on the company’s large-format digital cameras).

The key is an in-on-the-joke script, which Derrickson co-wrote with Jon Spaihts and C. Robert Cargill, that ingeniously navigates major plot potholes even as it saddles its actors with ludicrous dialogue. But what actors! As Doctor Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch sheds his British accent but not the attitude, which both attracts and repulses fellow doctor Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams, the most competent — and human — of Marvel’s window-dressing girlfriends).

After the accident, Strange seeks advice from a man named Pangborn (Benjamin Bratt), who broke his back, but somehow learned to heal himself. Though skeptical at first, after meeting the former paraplegic on a basketball court, Strange takes his advice and heads east to Kathmandu, where he meets the Jedi-like Mordo ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ) and his master, the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). Mordo is a fascinating character whose motives are every bit as complex as Strange’s. Those who wish there were more of him in the film would be advised to stick around through both post-credits bonus scenes.

Meanwhile, much has already been written about the casting of the white-skinned Swinton in a role originally conceived as an old Asian man (as if the world needs yet another Mister Miyagi/Pai Mei stereotype), when the only real disappointment there is that the practically extraterrestrial star wasn’t asked to play the title role — because who is stranger ? Swinton already walks this earth in some sort of enlightened state, and it’s no far leap to accept her as an ageless oracle with the power to bend matter and slow time. The latter trick, which turncoat ex-disciple Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) uses for more nefarious purposes, lends the film a staggering visual effects innovation, in which the building-bending seen in Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is taken to an extreme that would blow even M.C. Escher’s mind.

Whereas we can generally intuit the “rules” that govern most superheroes and their powers, Doctor Strange’s New Age training puts us in a vulnerable place where seemingly anything can happen: One near-death ER sequence manages to be tense, hilarious, and exhilarating at the same time, while another on a hospital balcony is among Marvel’s most poignant. To counter whatever disorder might result, the film is unusually heavy on exposition, and yet Derrickson understands that’s it’s far more satisfying to show than to explain, impressing with one psychedelic sequence after another. Burn a bit of incense or something stronger before watching, and this already hyper-vivid 3D experience is liable to carry you away entirely, especially when Kaecilius proceeds to fold first staircases and later the streets of New York into an elaborate moving kaleidoscope, in which Doctor Strange proceeds to jump, slip, and slide like a pawn in an elaborate, multi-dimensional chess game.

While it’s frustrating that each of these movies must build to a generic showdown between our superhero and some all-powerful, earth-endangering supervillain, “Doctor Strange” takes that tedious inevitability and spins it off into an alternate Dark Dimension, where wit (both humor and intellect) prevails. That’s an especially apt solution for this particular hero, since he’s been robbed of physical strength: The car crash left Doctor Strange practically handicapped, forcing him to learn tricks and spells to compensate for his lost dexterity. Since his enemies are martial arts experts with post-“Matrix” abilities, he has no choice but to get creative, conjuring shields and teleportation portals from plain air. At one point, facing off against Kaecilius and his henchmen, Strange stumbles across the Cloak of Levitation, a magical cape that proactively comes to his defense, absorbing blows while giving him hints on how to escape the situation.

Such scenes may be good for spectacle, but Doctor Strange’s most fascinating battle is within himself, as he fights first to regain the use of his hands and later to overcome everything he has learned — not only about the laws of physics, but also the social conditioning that taught this workaholic that his self-worth was tied to a job he can no longer perform. The character is literally fighting for his life in this film, and Cumberbatch captures both his humbling and the subsequent recovery of confidence. Here is a man who cockily swore off being an emergency room surgeon because he wasn’t interested in saving one life at a time, only to be rendered useless by his injuries. So, while we might yawn at yet another threat to all mankind, “Doctor Strange” has been presented in such a way that this higher calling restores his ability to help the world entire. We understand that this calling matters to him, even if his motives remain a mystery.

Reviewed at AMC Century City, Los Angeles, Oct. 20, 2016. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 115 MIN.

• Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Marvel Studios presentation. Producer: Kevin Feige. Executive producers: Louis D'esposito, Victoria Alonso, Stephen Broussard, Charles Newirth, Stan Lee. Co-producer: David J. Grant.
• Crew: Director: Scott Derrickson. Screenplay: Jon Spaihts, Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill. Camera (color, widescreen, 3D): Ben Davis. Editors: Wyatt Smith, Sabrina Plisco.
• With: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Mads Mikkelsen, Tilda Swinton, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt, Scott Adkins, Zara Phythian, Alaa Safi, Katrina Durden.

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Den of Geek

Doctor Strange Review

The Sorcerer Supreme makes his big screen debut in Marvel's Doctor Strange movie, and he looks a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch.

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Doctor Strange has been on the Marvel movie to-do list since the House of Ideas was still just a place that studio president Kevin Feige visited on his way home from eighth grade when he stopped at his local comic book shop. The arrogant surgeon who becomes a master of the mystic arts and one of the Earth’s chief protectors against supernatural and extra-dimensional threats has fascinated and flummoxed a long string of screenwriters, producers and studios since at least 1986, and it even took the current powerhouse version of Marvel Studios nearly a decade to install the good doctor in his cozy little Sanctum Sanctorum down in Greenwich Village.

Stephen Strange has one of Marvel’s most clear-cut origin stories, which makes the long delay in bringing his story to the screen somewhat baffling. Then again, the idea of a superhero who does most of his crimefighting as a disembodied being on an astral plane that resembles what Kubrick’s “star gate” might have looked like if the director had actually dropped acid was no doubt daunting to even the most open-minded filmmakers. But after eight years of confounding everyone who has naysayed Marvel Studios’ ability to bring some of its most outlandish properties to the screen, the time was right for Doctor Strange — but oddly enough his roots as a comic book creation have ended up working both for and against the movie.

When we first meet Strange — embodied by Benedict Cumberbatch in full haughtiness — he is at the top of his world as he knows it, a successful, wealthy and exceptionally self-important neurosurgeon who takes calculated risks inside his patients’ heads — that is, when he’s interested enough to take their cases. Flirting with fellow doctor and one-time lover Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), stomping around his penthouse apartment or zipping through the streets of Manhattan like a medical version of James Bond, Strange lives his life in fourth gear — until it all comes crashing down around him when his car swerves off an upstate mountain road.

His hands and career destroyed, the trajectory of Strange’s decline is illustrated by how unkempt and scraggly his hair and beard become. Desperate to fix his trembling, stiffening fingers and finding no help from Western medicine, Strange travels to Nepal and stumbles into the company of Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who introduces the doctor to Kamar-Taj, the sanctuary of the bald, smiling, ethereal Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). It is through the guidance of the Ancient One, Mordo and a contingent of acolytes that Strange learns about the larger universe beyond this one, setting him on a path to become a maestro of the metaphysical and a defender of the planet against menaces from beyond — including Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), a former student of the Ancient One with his own ideas about healing.

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Doctor Strange , under the direction of horror movie specialist Scott Derrickson (who also co-wrote with C. Robert Cargill and Jon Spaihts), lives up to its advance billing as perhaps Marvel’s weirdest and most visually audacious movie yet. I mentioned the famous “star gate” sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey earlier; the scene here where the Ancient One shoves Strange out of his corporeal body and into a white-hot ride through a succession of dazzlingly bizarre universes is legitimately mind-blowing, as are several visits to the Dark Dimension, an evil outlier cosmos that appears to be ripped right out of the original Doctor Strange pages first drawn by the incomparable Steve Ditko (this is one of the rare times I recommend seeing a movie in 3D for the full effect).

Equally eye-opening (as in “third eye”) are the casting of spells, the relics like the scene-stealing Cloak of Levitation, the leaping through inter-dimensional portals from one side of the globe to the other, and the battles between the Ancient One’s army and Kaecilius’ minions on city streets and sides of skyscrapers that fold, spin and turn inside out like Escher on a major bender. It’s dizzying, deranged, and a total blast, adding a whole new level of comic book giddiness to a Marvel Cinematic Universe that already includes Norse gods, talking raccoons and flying cyborgs powered by cosmic stones.

The cast, one of Marvel’s finest, sells all this with aplomb: Cumberbatch’s aristocratic presence and simmering intelligence make him the perfect Strange; like Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man or Chris Evans as Captain America, it’s instantly difficult to see anyone else in the role. Swinton already seems like she’s from a different realm, so playing a thousand-year-old wizard isn’t much of a stretch; nevertheless she tackles it with serenity and a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Ejiofor and Benedict Wong as the librarian of Kamar-Taj bring the appropriate gravitas, and even though Marvel villains continue to lag behind the gold standard of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, Mikkelsen manages to inject a little complexity and humor into his otherwise standard bad guy.

The acting, the visual fireworks and Michael Giacchino’s distinctive, Eastern-influenced score all go a long way toward disguising the fact that we are once again watching an origin story, and one that seems even a bit more perfunctory than usual. I mentioned Iron Man earlier, and the truth is that Doctor Strange plays like a remix of that very first MCU movie, from its lead character’s arc to its snarky humor to its status as a standalone story with little connection (at least at first) to the bigger narratives of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy. There is not a moment plot-wise in Doctor Strange that comes off as surprising or unpredictable, and even a late second-act reveal isn’t the game-changing moment it’s perhaps meant to be.

By the time we get to the movie’s climactic showdown — which involves some unique fracturing of time in multiple directions — even those eye-filling visuals can’t stop a certain resignation setting in: we know exactly where the story is going and where Strange is going to end up. If Doctor Strange the movie suffers from anything, it’s a sense that filmmakers and cast, as hard as they are all working, just want to get through the origin story so Strange can move onto bigger adventures, both on his own and alongside the other members of the MCU (and yes, please remember to stay for the mid-and-post-credits scenes).

On one hand, Doctor Strange is a bit too clockwork as a story to make it into the top tier of Marvel movies, but on the other hand, its fearless approach to bringing the many weird dimensions that Strange traverses into the MCU emphasizes the studio’s complete confidence in both its material and its ability to sell these heady concepts to a mainstream audience. Perhaps that confidence will allow Marvel to move past the standard origin template from this point forward; in the meantime, the Sorcerer Supreme’s cinematic debut makes us hopeful enough that stranger things, so to speak, are ahead for him.

Doctor Strange is out in theaters on November 4.  

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3.5 out of 5

Don Kaye | @donkaye

Don Kaye is an entertainment journalist by trade and geek by natural design. Born in New York City, currently ensconced in Los Angeles, his earliest childhood memory is…

‘Doctor Strange’ One Of My Favorite Marvel Superheroes Doesn’t Disappoint

When we first meet the Dr. Strange, pre-superhero, it’s obvious that he is brilliant, and a complete insufferable narcissist. The dude has a major attitude and one that is not very appealing.

Well, it doesn’t take long before Strange finds his perfect, controlled world turned upside down. It comes in the form of a major car crash that Strange survives but at a very big price. His hands are so severly damaged that he may never operate again. The world Strange knows just might be gone forever. This sends the him into a downward spiral that even his girlfriend, Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) can’t get him out of.

After fruitlessly searching for a cure in traditional medicine, he meets a man named Pangborn (Benjamin Bratt), who broke his back, but somehow learned to heal himself.  When Stange presses him for more information,  Pangborn tells him to go to Kathmandu in Nepal.

Despite his intense scepticism, he takes Pangborn’s advice and heads to Tibet to find Kathmandu. It’s here that he meets Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who after turning him away, eventually winds up taking Strange to meet his master, The Ancient, played by the brilliant Tilda Swinton.

To say Strange thinks this whole thing is one big joke is an understatement, but to his credit, he doesn’t run away. Instead, he slowly lets go of all of his baggage and allows The Ancient to become his teacher. Through extraordinarily hard work, Strange finds himself on the physical and spiritual journey of his life. One that could mean the end of the earth and mankind as we know it.

For those familiar with the comic, I promise you won’t be disappointed and for those that aren’t, you will definitely NOT be disappointed.

“Dr. Strange,” directed by Scott Derrickson, who also co-wrote the film, is a feast for the eyes. I saw it in IMAX 3D and it was one visually wild ride. Cumberbatch’s Strange has perfect comic timing and his wit is sharp. Cumberbatch makes a perfect Dr. Strange.

I gave “Dr. Strange,” which opens in theaters Friday, November 5th, five bagels out of five.  Don’t miss it.

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Doctor strange.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 41 Reviews
• Kids Say 181 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Mysticism, humor, and action surround unique Marvel hero.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Doctor Strange is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but focuses on sorcery rather than more traditional superhero powers. At the start, the main character (Benedict Cumberbatch) is arrogant and selfish, but he slowly learns humility: to better himself and to think of others…

Why Age 12+?

Lots of mass destruction of buildings and property. A beheading (no gore shown).

One "s--t," plus a couple uses of "a--hole," "ass," and "hell."

Two characters have had an intimate relationship, and they talk comfortably toge

A character buys Kettle chips from a vending machine; sign for Yakult drinkable

Any Positive Content?

The ultimate lesson is one of humility -- i.e. "It's not about you." Arrogance a

As Marvel heroes go, Doctor Strange is closer to Tony Stark/Iron Man than he is

Violence & Scariness

Lots of mass destruction of buildings and property. A beheading (no gore shown). Frequent martial arts fighting, with some "magical" weapons (swords and whips made of light). Scenes on an operating table, with some bloody parts shown. Bloody scratches on the main character's face. Brutal car crash (character was texting while driving), with bloody hands and face. A terrible fall from a height, crashing through glass. Arguing. Some scary sequences (a brief nightmarish "journey" with grabbing hands).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two characters have had an intimate relationship, and they talk comfortably together. Mention of "sleeping together."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A character buys Kettle chips from a vending machine; sign for Yakult drinkable yogurt. This is also part of the Marvel franchise, which has vast quantities of tie-in merchandise.

Positive Messages

The ultimate lesson is one of humility -- i.e. "It's not about you." Arrogance and selfishness are limited, unfulfilling paths; learning to better yourself and following a path that isn't always easy provide greater rewards. Perseverance pays off. But rather than fight against a current, it can sometimes be better to surrender and use the current's power to your benefit. Argues that sometimes breaking the rules a little is necessary to get a job done. (And don't text and drive!)

Positive Role Models

As Marvel heroes go, Doctor Strange is closer to Tony Stark/Iron Man than he is to Steve Rogers/Captain America. He starts the story as arrogant and afraid but slowly learns humility -- to see a greater good outside his own wants and needs. He enters the battle even though he doesn't want to and even though he hasn't yet mastered his powers.

Parents need to know that Doctor Strange is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but focuses on sorcery rather than more traditional superhero powers. At the start, the main character ( Benedict Cumberbatch ) is arrogant and selfish, but he slowly learns humility: to better himself and to think of others. Frequent comic book-style action violence includes large-scale destruction, a brutal car crash (the result of texting and driving), bloody wounds and scenes at an operating table, and a terrible fall from a height, crashing through glass. There's also martial arts fighting, fighting with "magical" weapons, a beheading, and other brief, scary stuff. A couple is said to have been in a relationship, and there's a mention of "sleeping together." Language includes one "s--t," two uses of "a--hole" and an "ass." The doctor is an unusual, but very entertaining, member of the superhero club, and the movie's mystical elements provide food for thought as well as fun. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (41)
• Kids say (181)

Based on 41 parent reviews

Sorcery and black magic

Not a kids movie, too much blood and disturbing imagery, what's the story.

In DOCTOR STRANGE, the title character ( Benedict Cumberbatch ) is a skilled surgeon who's both successful and arrogant. After crashing his sports car, he finds that his hands are useless, and medical science can't restore them. But he hears of a man who was able to walk again after a spinal injury and seeks the source of this rumor, an Ancient One ( Tilda Swinton ) in Kathmandu, Nepal. At first the doctor mocks the Ancient One's claims that healing his spirit can heal his body, but he finds her powers genuine and begs to be taught. His training goes better than expected: It even appears that Doctor Strange might be a natural-born sorcerer. But a villain, Kaecilius ( Mads Mikkelsen ), has stolen pages from one of the Ancient One's spell books and intends to use them to bring a dark dimension to Earth. Has Strange learned enough to stop this evil from happening?

Is It Any Good?

Marvel's 14th Cinematic Universe movie has all the usual action and explosions, but it also has a different type of main character -- one who's magical and appealingly flawed but willing to change. Chiefly known as a horror director, helmer Scott Derrickson unexpectedly adds plenty of playfulness and humor to a story that could have been steeped in self-serious exoticism and mysticism. It helps that Cumberbatch and Swinton, as well as Benedict Wong as the keeper of the spellbook library, bring so much personality to their roles.

Most of Doctor Strange 's seriousness is a burden carried by Chiwetel Ejiofor 's Mordo character, but comic fans will at least know the reason why. Unfortunately, the best character moments tend to cool down and fizzle out during the big action sequences. But some of those scenes, which have beautiful "folding" effects as the sorcerers change the environment around them, are quite impressive, especially as Strange learns his powers. As the movie's climax arrives, the action becomes bigger and less involving. Still, it's thrilling to see Strange embrace his inner spirit, finding power by going with the current, instead of against it.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Doctor Strange 's violence . How does it compare to what you've seen in other Marvel movies? Is there a difference in the impact of hand-to-hand combat and catastrophic, buildings-collapsing type of explosions?

As the movie begins, how is the doctor selfish and arrogant? How does he learn to change these things? How does he demonstrate humility and perseverance ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Why do you think the Marvel comics have turned into such well-received movies? How does Doctor Strange fit in? How is he different?

What lessons does Doctor Strange learn from the Ancient One? Could you apply any of these lessons to your own life?

How does the movie address texting and driving ? Do the consequences seem realistic?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 4, 2016
• On DVD or streaming : February 28, 2017
• Cast : Benedict Cumberbatch , Rachel McAdams , Tilda Swinton
• Director : Scott Derrickson
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Superheroes , Adventures
• Character Strengths : Humility , Perseverance
• Run time : 115 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : sci-fi violence and action throughout, and an intense crash sequence
• Award : Common Sense Selection
• Last updated : July 21, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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What to watch next.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Star Trek Into Darkness

Hellboy (2004)

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Origin and development in the Silver Age

From the bronze age to the modern era, doctor strange in other media.

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Doctor Strange

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Doctor Strange , American comic-book superhero created for Marvel Comics by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko . The character first appeared in a backup strip in Strange Tales no. 110 in July 1963 but soon blossomed into one of the cult characters of the decade and a staple in the Marvel pantheon.

Magicians had long been a staple of comics. Lee Falk’s Mandrake the Magician comic strip debuted in 1934, and Fred Guardineer’s Zatara followed in Action Comics no. 1 in June 1938. Doctor Strange broke with the stage conjurer imagery of these prior comic magicians and potently mixed sorcery with the energy of superheroes to create something unique.

In his origin story, vain, egotistical neurosurgeon Stephen Strange injures his hands in a car crash. Attempts to heal his hands using science and medicine fail, and a desperate Strange travels to Tibet to find the fabled “Ancient One,” who he hopes will restore him to health. On finding the old sage, Strange becomes his acolyte and a “Master of the Mystic Arts.”

Doctor Strange was a comic unlike any other. As Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, the hero traveled to other dimensions and fought unique villains such as Nightmare, Eternity, and the dread Dormammu. References to the Eye of Agamotto and the Great Book of the Vishanti hinted at almost unimaginable wonders. Lee kept the dialogue exciting and enjoyably florid, punctuating Strange’s speech with exclamations such as “By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!” Ditko provided much of the story plotting, and his illustrations complemented Lee’s sometimes outrageous prose with eye-catching images that pushed the boundaries of the comic art of the day.

Doctor Strange, his extradimensional love interest Clea, and his assistant Wong operated out of their Gothic “sanctum sanctorum” in the heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village . By the time of 1967’s “Summer of Love,” the Doctor Strange comic had been widely adopted by the hippie movement, and its spells and alternate realities were widely believed to resemble LSD trips. Doctor Strange appeared on handbills for concerts in the San Francisco Bay area and on the cover of a Pink Floyd album. He was, in effect, the psychedelic superhero. The irony was that his creators were middle-aged professionals with years of comics work behind them; Ditko in particular was known for his conservative views and distrust of hippies.

Doctor Strange propelled the sales of Strange Tales throughout the mid-1960s. In 1968 he was given his own book, and new artist Gene Colan produced hallucinatory layouts for Doctor Strange that were even more experimental than Ditko’s. When sales dipped, there was a last-ditch attempt to make Doctor Strange more like a traditional superhero by giving him a mask, but that experiment was short-lived. Rather than languishing in obscurity, Doctor Strange was eventually teamed with other Marvel nonconformists— the Hulk , Sub-Mariner, and Silver Surfer—as the Defenders . Throughout the 1970s and intermittently over subsequent decades, the Defenders remained a Marvel staple, with Doctor Strange routinely taking a leading role.

Initially in Marvel Premiere and then (from 1974) once again in his own comic, Doctor Strange was used by new writer Steve Englehart as a vehicle to explore popular interest in spirituality, self-exploration, and consciousness-raising. One extraordinary story line culminated in Earth’s destruction and, one second later, recreation, leaving the almost omnipotent Doctor Strange as the planet’s only “original” inhabitant. Englehart left to write for rival comics publisher DC , but Doctor Strange continued to be one of the more literate titles in Marvel’s lineup for the rest of the decade.

Doctor Strange spent much of the 1980s in cancellation. A revival in 1988 was characterized by an almost constant procession of changes, including Doctor Strange being stripped of most of his powers, losing one eye, and abandoning magic only to return to it three issues later. Many 1990s issues were peopled with monsters and vampires, and the comic became affiliated with Marvel’s horror-themed “Midnight Sons” line. Later innovations failed to prevent the comic’s cancellation. Appearances in other titles throughout the 1990s and early 2000s included a miniseries for Marvel’s mature Marvel Knights line, as a benign spirit in the grim future fable Earth X , in a tongue-in-cheek Defenders revival, and as an aide to the Thunder God in Garth Ennis’s macabrely humorous Thor: Vikings miniseries.

In New Avengers no. 7 (July 2005) Doctor Strange was revealed to be a member of the Illuminati, a small secret group, who sought to contain threats to Earth by any means possible. Other core members included the Inhumans’ king Black Bolt, Black Panther , Iron Man , Mr. Fantastic , Professor X , and the Sub-Mariner. Doctor Strange also became a member of the New Avengers. In Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars (2015–16), a miniseries that merged Marvel’s mainstream “616” universe with its Ultimate imprint , Doctor Strange served as an assistant to an all-powerful Doctor Doom. The events of Secret Wars led to a company-wide reboot, and the stand-alone Doctor Strange book was relaunched in October 2015.

The Sorcerer Supreme’s first foray into other media was the 1978 made-for-TV movie Dr. Strange . Marvel had scored live-action television hits with The Amazing Spider-Man (1977) and The Incredible Hulk (1978), and hopes were high that Dr. Strange would spawn an ongoing series. The film was true to the otherworldly spirit of the comic—a fact that may have made it inaccessible to prime time audiences—but low ratings spelled the end of plans for a series. Nearly four decades would pass before Doctor Strange returned to the screen in the direct-to-video animated film Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme (2007).

The Master of the Mystic Arts joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Doctor Strange (2016), with Benedict Cumberbatch assuming the title role. The film was a blockbuster hit, with more than $675 million in global box office earnings. Cumberbatch returned as Doctor Strange in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and in Avengers: Infinity War (2018).

All Of Doctor Strange's Powers And Abilities Explained

Doctor Stephen Strange is among the most powerful heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As the Sorcerer Supreme, he's tasked with safeguarding Earth from magical threats and beings of immense power. Take Dormammu, the big bad from his 2016 eponymous film, "Doctor Strange." Inside his native Dark Dimension, he's a being of uncharted power, capable of absolute mastery of existence within. When Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) summons the Destroyer of Worlds with the missing pages of the Book of Cagliostro, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is able to defeat him with a bit of trickery and a piece of costume jewelry.

Alright, in fairness, that was actually the Eye of Agamotto, which contains the Time Stone, but perhaps that is better way of making the point. Strange, a mere mortal with only months worth of magical training, is able to wield an Infinity Stone in order to defeat an extra-dimensional, god-tier being. Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), is part Celestial and couldn't wield the Power Stone unaided, relying on Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) to help distribute the burden of its energy. 

Like the late Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), aka Iron Man, we've wondered what is Doctor Strange's job exactly, besides making balloon animals? Strange says it's to protect reality, which got us wondering exactly how he's able to take on such a monumental task. After much pondering, we've come up with a list of everything we've seen him do in the MCU. These are all of Doctor Strange's powers and abilities, explained.

Astral projection

One of the first acts of magic to which Stephen Strange bears witness is his astral form being pushed out of his physical body by the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) at Kamar-Taj . At first, he thinks he's been drugged and asks his host what was in the tea he'd just drank, assuming it was a hallucinogen like the mushroom psilocybin. She assures him it's just tea, with a bit of honey, before taking him on an incredible, mind-bending journey — and subsequently kicking him out on his butt. 

During his training, Doctor Strange takes advantage of astral projection to increase his knowledge in a unique form of studying: he reads the ancient tomes at his disposal while his physical form sleeps. He advances so quickly that Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is surprised at the "litany of spells" he was able to master in order to use the Eye of Agamotto. Strange's explanation is his photographic memory, which enabled him to earn an MD and PhD simultaneously. We're guessing that his mind continuing to work while his body rests had a little bit to do with it as well. Of course, Stephen wasn't just hitting the books in his astral form. He fought one of Kaecilius' disciples in the astral plane at the hospital, popping in and out to give Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) instructions — and scaring the bejeezus out of her — as she worked to save his life. 

Somewhere along the way, Wanda Maximioff (Elizabeth Olsen), aka the Scarlet Witch, must have taken a cue from Doctor Strange, because we see her doing the exact same thing — studying in the astral plane — at the end of "WandaVision."

Traveling via portals

One of Stephen Strange's first tasks at Kamar-Taj is to learn to open portals with the use of a Sling Ring. The Sling Ring, when used adeptly, allows one to travel across the world like they're walking through a doorway. But Doctor Strange just can't seem to get it right, insisting his unsteady hands are to blame. At that point, the Ancient One brings out Master Hamir (Topo Wresniwiro), who promptly dispels any notion of Strange's hands being the problem when he effortlessly opens a portal, despite missing his left hand from the wrist down. Strange eventually gets the whole portal thing down when the Ancient One leaves him to die of exposure atop Mount Everest if he's unable to conjure a portal to safety.

Just like astral projection, Strange uses portals to advance his studies of the mystic arts; when librarian Wong (Benedict Wong) refuses to allow him to check out certain books he feels are too advanced, Strange just conjures a portal into the library — which is forbidden — to take them surreptitiously. The crafty old librarian may have been confused for a bit but clearly figured it out eventually, evident in the Ancient One's knowledge of the transgression — seriously, Wong told on him?

These portals serve more purpose than just acting as an instant inter-dimensional Uber, of course. Strange used one to nab Loki (Tom Hiddleston) when he and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) were standing on the sidewalk in New York City in "Thor: Ragnarok."

Shield spells

As seen throughout the MCU, pretty much whenever the masters of the mystic arts are around, adepts are able to use magic-based energy shields to ward off enemy attacks, defending against both mystical and physical assaults. According to the MCU Fandom site, they're referred to as "Tao Mandalas." Wait, what? Breaking that term down etymologically, it references two different concepts from Eastern religions and-or mysticism. In the context of Taoism, "tao" has several meanings, the most relevant is likely "the way"; these teachings come from Lao Tzu (also Laozi), the ancient Chinese philosopher to whom the Tao Te Ching is traditionally attributed (via the  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ). Though it's not particularly helpful for our task of analyzing the meaning of the shield's name, "tao" is impossible to conceptualize in abstract and is something that must be experienced as the flow of life. 

As for "mandala," it's not just a beautiful geometric design from an adult coloring book; as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary tells us, it is "a Hindu or Buddhist graphic symbol of the universe." Combining those two elements suggests that, essentially, Doctor Strange and his fellow mystics are channeling magical energy flowing throughout the universe into shield forms.

As first seen in 2016's "Doctor Strange," Stephen Strange's shields are mostly reactionary; when fending off Kaecilius and his followers, his Tao Mandalas are practically instinctual. Director Scott Derrickson told Vulture they brought on a special choreographer to teach the actors the art of tutting. "I wanted it to be in the action, I wanted it to be more organic, and that seemed to lead me to this idea that magic is about movements and gestures."

Weapon spells

Obviously Stephen Strange is able to use magic for more than just defense. This isn't Daniel LaRusso's vision of Miyagi-do karate, after all; we're talking about dealing with cosmic threats to the balance of the universe, not butting heads with the rival Cobra Kai dojo. One of the earliest weapons we see the title character use in "Doctor Strange" is referred to as the Eldritch Whip, as "Doctor Strange" visual effects supervisor Stephane Ceretti told 3D-World in 2016. "It looks like a stream of energy with lots of sparks, and when it hits something it sears and burns," he said. 

We're hoping the "whip" part of that term is pretty self-explanatory and anyone who's dipped even a fraction of a toe into the works of H.P. Lovecraft should recognize "eldritch" as a word meaning  strange, unnatural and otherworldly. Unlike the most rudimentary forms of the Tao Mandalas, the Eldritch Whip — which also requires the Sling Ring — looks like takes a bit more practice and concentration to pull off, which is probably a good thing; there's no sense knowing how to attack someone or something without knowing how to defend against a counterattack.

Remember the choreographer we mentioned when discussing shields? "We hired him to do all the choreography, so he taught Tilda and Benedict and Mads. It's very specific and very deliberate and super-cool," director Scott Derrickson told Vulture . "In fact, he's in the movie. He's the very first guy in the opening scene, who forms the magic whip ... It was all very detailed and designed and he was awesome. I'm really glad we used him."

Interdimensional travel

As he grew more adept in his magical abilities, Stephen Strange needed somewhere safe to practice his spell casting. As such, the Ancient One showed him how to enter the Mirror Dimension. It's a parallel plane of existence that looks much like our own but anything Doctor Strange does while there will not affect the physical world. "Harry Potter" fans can think of it as an infinite Room of Requirement for Dumbledore's Army to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts and "X-Men" fans might liken to the Danger Room, except it's not just limited to a broom closet in a mansion in Westchester, New York.

As the Ancient One explains, it's also a place where masters of the mystic arts can trap other beings, provided the don't have a Sling Ring, which is critical to entering the Mirror Dimension. In the first act of "Doctor Strange," it's where she sends Kaecilius and his fanatics when they steal the page from the Book of Cagliostro that explains how to summon Dormammu . It's also where Stephen Strange tries to send them when they attack the New York sanctum. The problem with that idea is he didn't realize that, in channeling energy from the Dark Dimension, they have grown more powerful in the Mirror Dimension and can fold and bend reality with ease, making it difficult for Strange and Mordo to escape.

The warping of the Mirror Dimension was specifically inspired by a renowned Dutch graphic artist. "The idea became, 'What would a chase scene be like inside an M.C. Escher world?' Not just to present it as an exterior canvas, but to actually be inside of it, in motion," director Scott Derrickson told the L.A. Times .

In addition to his ability to cast spells, born out of months of learning and effort, Doctor Strange also gets some additional benefits from his keen fashion choices. While that tuxedo he was planning to wear to the medical conference may have turned heads, he eventually acquired a cloak that could likely snap necks.

As Mordo tells him, eventually he will get to use relics that will grant him powers; they're able to do so because they were imbued with magic too powerful to sustain. Mordo himself is rocking the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr; when Strange asks when his turn will come, his mentor goes full-Ollivander and offers the MCU equivalent of "the wand chooses the wizard." "You're ready when the relic decides you're ready," Mordo says.

Well, the relic in question decided Stephen Strange was ready when Kaecilius was absolutely mopping the floor with him. When Dormammu's disciple was tossing the title character around the New York sanctum like a rag doll, he wasn't exactly concerned with keeping it tidy. One of the many things he smashes was the case containing a red cloak, which Mordo later tells Strange is the Cloak of Levitation. In addition to granting the wearer the namesake ability, the cloak also appears to have a will of its own, which is why it's able to save Strange when Kaecilius knocks him over the rail for what looks like a solid 15-foot drop. It's also how the cloak is able to steer the good doctor away from the battle ax he tries to grab in favor the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak relic which imprisons his enemy.

Time manipulation

Courtesy of another relic, Stephen Strange is able to manipulate time, rewinding events so as to rearrange the timeline and affect the eventual outcome of a given situation. The relic in question is the powerful Eye of Agamotto, created by the first Sorcerer Supreme, Agamotto, who also first established the sanctums that the master of the mystic arts use to safeguard the earth. Whether or not its creator was aware of it, the Eye is powered by the Time Stone — as Wong tells us in "Doctor Strange" — which explains why it's so darn powerful.

After all, how else would Doctor Strange been able to pause and rewind the action on the streets of Hong Kong? It's not like reality is a DVR — though, if it was, the Eye of Agamotto would be one of the world's most amazing universal remotes. In addition to an impressive parlor trick of scrolling through the stages of an apple being eaten and its core decaying — which was simply meant to display what the Eye can do — Strange uses it to trap Dormammu in an infinite loop; though the Devourer of World's exists without the flow of time in the Dark Dimension, when on Earth, he must play by our rules. As such, Strange commits himself to dying infinite deaths in order to force Dormammu to abandon his quest to conquer the Earth.

When Strange surrendered the Time Stone in "Avengers: Infinity War," Thanos used it to wipe out half of all life in the universe before destroying all six Infinity Stones. If Captain America (Chris Evans) truly returned all the alternate Stones in "Avengers: Endgame," then Doctor Strange will seemingly no longer have this ability.

Casting protective spells over objects

With an item as powerful as the Eye of Agamotto — and the Time Stone within it — within his possession, Stephen Strange would surely need to go to some length to make sure it's not taken from him. Although he's plenty powerful, he understands that it's likely someone more powerful will come along to try to take it off his hands. Enter Bruce Banner through the roof of the New York sanctum; he tells Doctor Strange and Wong that Thanos is coming. After explaining who the Mad Titan is — you would think Doctor Strange, who keeps a watchlist of potential threats, would have heard of him — they enlist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) 

After Stark and Strange exchange barbs and debate the merits of destroying the Time Stone vs. protecting it, Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian render the argument meaningless by dropping in on Greenwich Village in search of it, in turn trashing part of the city. Although Ebony Maw gets the better of Strange and eventually abducts him from Earth aboard Thanos' Q Ship, it's pretty clear he can't access the Time Stone. In fact, when he tries, it burns him; as the good doctor explains, were Ebony Maw to kill him, he'd find removing the spell "troublesome." The simple but unbreakable warding spell Strange put on the Eye of Agamotto is likely the only reason he survives the first act of "Infinity War," as Ebony Maw changes tack and takes the Sorcerer Supreme along for the ride to torture him in the hopes of eventually taking possession of the Time Stone.

Another trick Doctor Strange can do, courtesy of the Eye of Agamotto, is look into the future. He's not the first Sorcerer Supreme to do so, mind you. Though she doesn't reference the relic by name, the Ancient One tells the good doctor during their chat in the astral realm that she spent "years peering through time," looking at that exact moment outside the hospital but unable to see past it. She claims to have forestalled "countless terrible futures," one after another, and none of them went further than that exact moment in time. In addition to humanizing her, the scene sets up one of the other abilities granted by the Eye.

While on Titan, with Tony Stark and Peter Parker (Tom Holland), aka Spider-Man, having a confab with the remaining Guardians of the Galaxy, Strange is off in the corner doing his thing. He appears to be meditating, levitating in a yogic position with an aura of green energy surrounding him and the Eye of Agamotto glowing brightly. Mantis (Pom Klementieff) is the first to notice, asking Stark if Strange often does that — not that he'd know. When Strange emerges from his trance, he explains that he went forward in time in order to see every outcome of the upcoming battle — just over 14 million possible futures — of which they only win one.

Much like his ability to manipulate time, Doctor Strange appears to be unable to look forward in time in the MCU's current continuity, absent a relic that contains some version of the Time Stone. Time will tell if he somehow regains those abilities.

It's unclear if Doctor Strange's magical abilities have any respect for scientific principles like the law of conservation of mass or the first law of thermodynamics, because he seems to just pull things out of thin air sometimes. We see it happen in one of the "Doctor Strange" post-credits scenes — later adapted into a scene from "Ragnarok" — when he sits down with Thor to talk about his aforementioned watchlist and his adopted brother Loki's (Tom Hiddleston) place on it. When they sit down in those comfy-looking armchairs, Strange offers the God of Thunder tea; though Thor insists he doesn't drink tea, a cup appears in his hand anyway.

That, however, amounts to nothing more than an impressive parlor trick, akin to pulling rabbits out of hats. Doctor Strange's ability to conjure comes into play in much more dire circumstances during "Infinity War." After using the Eye of Agamotto to glimpse the future and the one possible way in which the forces of good are actually able to stop Thanos, Strange seems to have removed the Time Stone from the locket by the time the Mad Titan snatches it from around his neck, declaring it a fake. In truth, Strange has concealed the Time Stone using magic and only reveals it when Thanos is about to kill Tony Stark. The Bleecker Street Magician conjures the Time Stone after the Battle of Titan, bargaining with Thanos to spare Tony Stark's life, as it was part of the one-in-14 million chance they had to win in the end.

Transmutation

On top of making things appear and disappear, Doctor Strange can change them into something else altogether. That cup of tea he summoned for Thor in the New York sanctum? When the self-proclaimed strongest Avenger informed the good doctor that he doesn't drink tea, the cup magically became a liter of beer, which is much more Thor's speed. He was further amazed — and no doubt pleased — to learn that the mug refilled itself as he emptied it. When Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) crashes through the roof of the sanctum during the first act of "Infinity War," Strange's mystical wardrobe, Cloak of Levitation and all, instantly takes on the form of normal street clothes. Once again, however, this is more along the lines of what we expect from professional illusionists, not the peak powers of the Sorcerer Supreme.

Want to get impressed? Once more in "Infinity War," during the Battle of Titan, Thanos forces Doctor Strange to pull out all of the stops. When the former uses the Infinity Gauntlet to send an actual black hole at the latter, Strange's spell transforms it into a swarm of delicate blue butterflies. We're unsure of the significance of the actual butterflies — though Strange did seemingly see a monarch butterfly in space , courtesy of the trip the Ancient One sent him on during his first solo movie — but we're guessing the act of transmuting a super-dense, all-consuming vortex from which not even light can escape into a bunch of pretty insects is pretty significant in and of itself.

An array of other tricks

Doctor Strange has a few more tricks up his magic sleeves as well. Though each of these is only seen a single time, they're worth at least a passing mention. During the events of "Ragnarok," when Thor is looking for the Allfather, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Strange plucks a single strand of hair from the God fo Thunder's mighty mane. This act — to which Thor does not take kindly — was for the sake of casting a locator spell that would transport Thor and the still-falling Loki through a portal directly to their father.

Strange also uses a couple of one-off tricks in "Infinity War" — during the Battle of Titan — one of which is a different form of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, one more loyal to their use in Marvel comic books. Quite different than the usual mystic energy forms Strange uses as shields and weapons, the Crimson bands of Cyttorak are bright red, setting them apart from the bright yellow-orange color of the Tao Mandalas and Eldritch Whip, respectively. Strange pulled them out during the combined attack, seeking to bind Thanos' right hand to prevent his use of the Infinity Gauntlet. When Iron Man and Spider-Man attempt to get it off his hand, Strange restrains the Mad Titan's left hand.

Having failed to get the gauntlet off his hand, Strange later displays an ability to duplicate himself. Dozens of Doctors Strange attack Thanos with multiple Eldritch Whips. Their combined might was no match for the trademark purple blast of the Power Stone, however, as each of the duplicates was dispatched after Thanos attacked with the Infinity Gauntlet.

The Runes of Kof-Kol

When squeaky little Peter Parker is feeling down on himself for problems he kinda-sorta is responsible for, he seeks supernatural assistance to erase it all in "Spider-Man: No Way Home." Peter hopes Doctor Strange can make everyone on Earth forget he was ever Spider-Man so he can escape his newfound celebrity. For some reason, the former Sorcerer Supreme agrees. While this seems like something Steven normally wouldn't even entertain, he had to so we could get a cameo-packed film out of it.

Stephen and Peter head down to the Sanctum's expectedly drab basement, and orange sparks begin flowing. Doctor Strange performs The Runes of Kof-Kal — a spell that would fulfill Peter's exact aforementioned specifications. To put it simply, the Runes wipe the memory of those specified in the spell for a set period of time. According to Wong, the Runes of Kof-Kal travel "the dark borders between known and unknown realities." This initial warning should have made it a no-go, but arrogant Stephen gives it a whirl. The sorcerer didn't account for how annoying Mr. Parker could be, as the latter kept chiming in during the spell, changing his request. He doesn't want those closest to him — MJ, Ned, Happy, Aunt May — to forget his identity. Peter's interruption of the spell mid-progress allows people from other realities to crossover into ours. This only goes for people who know who Peter is, having the somewhat opposite intention of what the Runes of Kof-Kal are meant. Therefore, we get multiple villains from former Spidey flicks crossing over into the MCU, as well as two other Web-Slingers.

Since most of "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is a result of a botched initial Kof-Kal attempt, its finale sees Strange complete it correctly. The rules apply to everyone this time, including Ned, MJ, and Happy, and the film concludes with their memories Peter-wiped as well as everyone else on Earth. The Runes of Kof-Kal also send the reality trespassers back to their respective universes. The villains fade away reformed, while Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Spideys head back to their realities. 

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• Five Reasons Why Doctor Strange...

Five Reasons Why 'Doctor Strange' Is the Best Marvel Film Yet

Editorial Manager

Doctor Strange has always been seen as one of Marvel’s trickier comics to adapt for the screen. It’s unashamedly based in the realms of the supernatural, dealing with astral projection and self-healing soul power. Now that we’ve seen the movie, here are five reasons why it is Marvel’s finest to date. Based on the comic series created by Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko in 1963, the story follows Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), a gifted, arrogant surgeon who has it all. When injuries sustained in a car crash leave him unable to perform medical operations, Strange becomes obsessed with finding a cure. His desperate search leads him to a temple in Nepal where he meets a mystic known as The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3a1tJMtbP4

Initially disappointed to learn that he will only be training his mind and his soul to get better, Strange begins to realise the full power of his psyche, and what it can unleash… as well as the dangers of this power falling into the wrong hands.

The Special Effects

The film’s biggest successes are its stunning special effects. Think of the rotating corridor scene from Inception , the fight sequences from The Matrix and the trippy surrealism of Salvador Dali — and you might start to get the right idea. They might seem like an odd mix, but it’s one that works outstandingly well. The opening confrontation between The Ancient One and the villainous Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) takes place on the streets of London, but the visual effects transform the solid building into a rotating mass of clockwork walls.

In a later scene, where Strange is forced to enter the psychic world he initially dismisses, things take on a psychedelic tone. This time astral projections are executed on screen and Cumberbatch is transported into space. It’s a breathtaking excursion that is flawlessly delivered.

Not since the first portion of Kenneth Branagh’s Thor has there been so many intentional laughs in a Marvel movie. Part of this is down the bewilderment that Strange expresses at what is going on around him, with Cumberbatch doing a wonderfully droll side-eye every now and then, but for the most part the humour comes from a smart script.

Swinton and Chiwetel Ejiofor go for the deadpan approach, and it works. There are even visual gags, which sound ludicrous when described in writing, but trust us: the comedy cape with a life of its own will have you in stitches.

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The Direction

Scott Derrickson is best known for the horror series Sinister . He pulls of a neat trick with Doctor Strange by keeping some of the supernatural elements he is used to working with (more on that later), and balancing them with the critical elements of a superhero film. This is very much an origin story after all, and to get us fully involved in a world we have never seen before, as well as introduce a new character to the Marvel universe, is some achievement.

Blending Superheroes and the Supernatural

Here’s where I had the greatest concerns beforehand. Just how would the paranormal elements of the character sit alongside the long-established ‘real-world’ mechanics of The Avengers ?

Although there aren’t any direct interactions with other superheroes, there are enough references throughout to let us know this is very much a shared universe. There is even an early, albeit hard to spot, reference to War Machine and his fate after Captain America: Civil War .

Doctor Strange doesn’t concern itself with unnecessary physical limitations or explainers. Instead, the action never holds back — the director relishes hurling us into brash fight sequences that are like nothing we’ve seen before. We pick up on the rules of this universe very quickly, and are in tune with it within minutes.

Benedict Cumberbatch might struggle with a wonky American accent, but his performance is superb throughout. Playing Strange perfectly as an intelligent outsider, he turns what could have been an annoying character into a likeable hero.

He is helped by a supporting cast who take things seriously when they need to, but are willing to play it for laughs where necessary. Tilda Swinton has the cool aura of an ancient mystic, but she also has the dry humour of a professional comedian. We’ve seen it before, most recently in Trainwreck, and this time she gets to add some kick-ass action to her repertoire.

Special credit to two other members of the Strange cast, with Benedict Wong and Rachel McAdams working wonders despite limited screen time.

There are also a number of Marvel easter eggs to dine on for hardcore fans. We see Tony Stark’s Avengers skyscraper whenever we pan across the city (it’s even part of a spectacular early sequence that sees the New York landscape fold in on itself).

If you’ve made it this far, you’ll know what to expect next. Here come the obligatory post-credit stings… so if you want to avoid spoilers , look away now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOtIUWMLkdg

There are two additional clips at the end of the film, one midway through and one after all the credits have rolled.

First up, Strange sits opposite a thirsty Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who appears mesmerised by a jug of ale that continuously tops itself up every time the god of thunder thinks he has downed it. The pair have a brief discussion about why Thor and Loki (not seen on screen) are back in New York. When it is revealed that their mission is to find their father, Strange agrees to help.

Finally, there is a sequence that sees Ejiofor’s Karl Mordo return to find Jonathan Pangborn (Benjamin Bratt). We see Mordo turning to his more villainous side that is prevalent in the comics, and his desire to eliminate as many sorcerers as possible. Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange out on 3D Blu-ray ™, Blu-ray™ & DVD on March 6, 2017 Available on digital download from February 24, 2017

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Doctor Strange was more important to the MCU than we realized

There's more to Doctor Strange than its multiverse-style teases

It's ironic that Doctor Strange was a movie that thematically explored the concept, and passage, of time.

In the near six-year period since its initial release, the supernatural Marvel movie has gone up in many fans' estimations. Initially, Doctor Strange was viewed as one of the least popular or lesser rated entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Given the wealth of top-tier Marvel films that had come before – The Avengers , Iron Man , and Captain America: Civil War to name three – that was hardly a surprise.

But, while the Sorcerer Supreme can't use the Time Stone to travel back to 2016 and reverse those initial opinions, MCU fans have slowly warmed to Doctor Strange's first solo outing. At the time, it didn't appear as if the character's first standalone superhero flick would be as pioneering as it is now. But, given the problems and fan backlash to certain elements of its makeup, plus its references to the multiverse – Strange's second solo adventure will explore this in greater detail – 2016's Doctor Strange has proven to be a more important Marvel movie than we initially realized.

Forget everything you think you know

Doctor Strange marked the first time that the Sorcerer Supreme appeared in a live-action Marvel production. And, given the studio's penchant for giving each of its superheroes an MCU origin story (at the time, anyway), it was no surprise to see Strange receive such a treatment.

For those in need of a refresher: the film stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, The Hobbit trilogy) as Doctor Stephen Strange, a wealthy, gifted but wildly egotistical neurosurgeon whose arrogance eventually gets the better of him. Studying a number of potential surgery cases while driving his supercar at lightning-quick speeds (in a storm, no less), Strange is severely injured after crashing in a bid to evade an oncoming truck.

Strange's hands bear the brunt of his injuries, leaving him permanently scarred and no longer able to operate on patients. In a desperate bid to fix them and return to his old life, Strange seeks out a variety of experimental treatments – a journey that leads him to Kamar Taj. Here, Strange is trained in the way of the Mystic Arts – the MCU's version of magic and spells – while learning about humility and putting the greater good before himself. Oh, and he eventually comes into contact with the Time Stone and is forced to stop an evil, multi-dimensional being called Dormammu from consuming the earth. No pressure, then.

There's plenty to enjoy about Doctor Strange's first cinematic outing. It's a psychedelic, surreal, and spiritual MCU trip that delivered a visually spectacular flick unlike anything we'd previously seen from Marvel. Its Escher painting and Inception-style aesthetic was bold and innovative, and seemingly gave Marvel the confidence to push the boundaries with similarly mind-boggling visuals in other movies, such as Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2.

Cumberbatch's portrayal of a stubborn, ambitious man forced to reckon with who he is (and who he wants to be) is earnest, comedic, and at-times highly emotive. The movie's supporting cast – Chiwetel Ejiofor (Karl Mordo), Tilda Swinton (The Ancient One), Benedict Wong (Wong), and Mads Mikkelsen (Kaecilius) more than ably back Cumberbatch up, too.

Intriguing as Doctor Strange's story and cast of characters are, though, it's the film's wider context and importance to the MCU that's made it an invaluable entry in the franchise, particularly in the years (and movies) that have followed. Why? Because it laid the foundations for where the MCU was going post-Thanos: by introducing the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse (MCM).

Who are you in this vast multiverse, Mr Strange?

Thanks to the Infinity Saga's overarching narrative, it's easy to see why Doctor Strange's multiverse references were initially overlooked by most MCU fans. Sure, Doctor Strange's first standalone movie was a mind-bending, trippy, and slightly spooky affair. At the time, though, it was somewhat perceived as little more than a plot vehicle for the Time Stone's introduction during the Infinity Saga.

Based on the numerous references to the multiverse in Doctor Strange, however, it's clear that this movie initiated its arrival long before WandaVision , Loki , animated series What If...? , and Spider-Man: No Way Home began to explore the concept more comprehensively.

How about The Ancient One's "This universe is only one of an infinite number" speech to Strange as he tumbles through the film's first kaleidoscopic, mind-warping sequence? Or Mordo's mention of the Staff of the Living Tribunal – an omnipotent, cosmic being who oversees the balance of the multiverse – during one fight training scene? Or the revelation about the Astral Plane and Mirror Dimensions, i.e. the first mentions of parallel realities existing alongside the MCU's Material Plane?

With hindsight, we should have known how important Doctor Strange would be to ushering in the multiverse – director Scott Derrickson and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige confirmed as much to ComicBook.com and IGN respectively before the film's release. Now, there's no argument that Doctor Strange established the concept of multiple realities and dimensions in Marvel's smash-hit franchise. We just didn't realize it at the time.

Those multiverse teases enabled Marvel to expand upon the idea that multiple realities exist in its cinematic juggernaut. 

For one, Mordo's chastising of Strange – after the latter first messes around with the Time Stone – sets up numerous multiverse-style discussions in future MCU projects. Mordo's mention of temporal manipulations ends up forming the backbone to the Avengers' time heist plan in Endgame. Meanwhile, his references to spatial paradoxes and unstable dimensional openings act as precursors to the events of WandaVision and No Way Home.

Doctor Strange foreshadows plenty of other multiversal elements during its near two-hour runtime. Wong walking Strange through the various Mystic Arts tomes and texts teases the arrival of the Darkhold (as seen in WandaVision) and the Book of Vishanti (What If...? episode 4). Meanwhile, Mordo's "the bill comes due" speech in the movie's final act serves as a warning to Strange's manipulation of time and space in Infinity War and Endgame. In the latter film, he subtly helped the Avengers defeat Thanos and his army by telling Tony Stark/Iron Man that this was their one chance to defeat the Mad Titan. It's a decision that, coupled with his desire to help Peter Parker cast that spell in No Way Home, appears to have assisted the multiverse's official arrival in Marvel's flagship franchise.

Doctor Strange's MCU arc is brimming with incidents where the Master of the Mystic Arts has tampered with things beyond his control and understanding. If not for his various interventions, the multiverse may have remained nothing more than a side note in his first solo flick and the MCU. As it is, his meddling has helped bring about its introduction. With the multiverse likely to be the dominant force at play in Marvel's Phase 4 movie and TV slates, it's hard to overlook the significance of 2016's Doctor Strange over the former's grand entrance.

I never saw your future, only its possibilities

It isn't just the multiverse or the spearheading of hallucinatory visuals that establishes Doctor Strange as a ground-breaking Marvel movie.

Coincidentally, three of the MCU's more recent actors – Jake Gyllenhaal (Spider-Man: Far From Home), plus Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke (both Moon Knight) – were all in the running to portray Stephen Strange before Cumberbatch signed on. The 2016 Marvel flick may not have been the right MCU project for them, but their subsequent appearances in other movies means they made a lasting impression on Marvel executives. Otherwise, they wouldn't have landed the roles of Mysterio, Marc Spector/Steven Grant/Moon Knight, and Arthur Harrow respectively.

Doctor Strange was also viewed as a watershed moment for Marvel over its lack of on-screen diversity and representation. The casting of Swinton to portray The Ancient One – an Asian character in the Marvel comics – was met by a fierce backlash in some quarters, with critics accusing Marvel Studios of whitewashing the character.

Feige has since spoken of his regret over the casting, telling Men's Health that Marvel thought they were "being cutting-edge" but that the incident was a "wake-up call" for the studio, who should have handled it better. Swinton has also discussed the criticism over her hiring, telling Variety that she was "very grateful" that Feige admitted wrongdoing over the issue.

The experience has clearly shaped Marvel's push to better reflect the world, its races, and its cultures in its projects since. Black Panther saw the late Chadwick Boseman lead a predominantly Black cast for the first time in a Marvel movie, while Captain Marvel and Black Widow were the first MCU flicks to star a female superhero in the lead role.

More recently, the Simu Liu-starring Shang-Chi reversed the damage done by Doctor Strange with its authentic portrayal of Asian heritage and traditions. Meanwhile, Eternals introduced the first openly gay and deaf superheroes in the MCU, while Doctor Strange 2 will establish another LGBTQ+ character – America Chavez – in the franchise very soon.

Doctor Strange was similarly guilty of exoticizing Kamar-Taj (and Kathmandu generally); its use of the so-called yellow filter – a filmmaking technique used to stereotypically glamorize nations including India, Mexico, and those in Asia – adding an almost grimy, unclean feel to proceedings. With Moon Knight on Disney Plus utilizing natural light (during its months-long shoot) to portray Egypt with genuine realism, it seems that Marvel has taken a step in the right direction over this antiquated glamorization of non-Western nations.

Much like the protagonist of its 2016 movie, Marvel may wish to use Doctor Strange's Infinity Stone to go back and time and remedy its mistakes. But, like Stephen Strange, the studio had to overcome those errors to undergo the growth necessary to become an even better, more representative institution.

Doctor Strange certainly helped Marvel to do just that. Yes, the fantastical film led the way in bringing the multiverse to the MCU, but it also did so much more besides. It aided Marvel's development in how the studio operates today, what stories it brings to the table, and why diverse, inclusive castings (and crew hirings) should be at the forefront of every Marvel project. For that, Doctor Strange – as a piece of entertainment and a production that brought about real change – should be commended.

• Want to learn about the next MCU film after Doctor Strange 2? Read up on everything we know about Thor 4

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‘Doctor Strange’ Review: Marvel’s Mind-Bending New Superhero Movie Is Their Best Since ‘The Avengers’

David ehrlich.

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Giving a whole new meaning to the idea of Doctors Without Borders, “ Doctor Strange ” is a superhero movie that often feels as though it’s been shot through a kaleidoscope — it’s hollow, hypnotic, and every twist of the tube reflects a beautiful new dimension of infinite possibilities. Unapologetically folding the likes of “The Matrix” and “Inception” into the fabric of the Marvel Cinematic Universe , “Sinister” director Scott Derrickson reaches into the mirror dimension (whatever the hell that is) and retrieves the year’s most (only?) visually dazzling blockbuster.

That spectacle comes at a cost. As with all of the best installments of the MCU, the film’s unique strengths have a perverse way of highlighting the franchise’s shared weaknesses. But “Doctor Strange” deserves credit for treating several of the ailments that have been infecting the series, and for diagnosing several more. A movie about a forward-thinking man who is deeply afraid of failure, “Doctor Strange” can be seen as something of a self-portrait for the studio that produced it — it might even be more fun to think of it in that context, as the risks taken by the story’s thinly sketched superhero are endowed with the weight and history of the many-tentacled mythos that we’ve been watching Marvel unpack for almost a decade. This is the most exciting addition to their ever-expanding universe since “The Avengers.”

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For a character who hasn’t appeared in a live-action feature of any sort since 1978, Stephen Strange ( Benedict Cumberbatch ) feels mighty familiar. A selfish, arrogant, and relentlessly ambitious (but emotionally distant!) white guy who lives in a massive glass penthouse in the middle of Manhattan, New York’s most eligible neurosurgeon is a lot like another Marvel superhero, one who’s in the process of being phased out. That may not be true in the graphic novels, but — at least in the MCU — the biggest difference between Stephen Strange and Tony Stark is that one of them cuts with sarcasm, the other with a scalpel. They even have the same goatee. As you watch Strange recklessly injure himself in a car accident, resort to dangerous measures in order to heal himself, and then ultimately be endowed with greater powers and responsibilities than he ever dreamed possible, it’s hard to tell if Marvel is renovating its property or flat-out resetting it.

Of course, complaining about origin stories in superhero movies is sort of like complaining about subtitles in foreign films — they’re a necessary evil, without which most viewers would be lost. Still, there’s no denying that Marvel is reaching the point where they know they have to go back to the drawing board. There’s only so much more juice that they can squeeze from their core cast of characters, and “Doctor Strange” is but the most compelling and transparent of their recent attempts to transfigure the magic from one generation to the next.

But if “Doctor Strange” can be dispiritingly safe, it can also be just as impressively bold — an hallucinogenic trip along a very familiar path, watching the film is like adding a large dose of LSD to your morning commute. A riveting prologue provides some fun teases of the craziness to come: The action begins at a Nepalese monastery as a guy named Kaecilius ( Mads Mikkelsen , glammed up with so much glittery eye makeup that he could just as easily be playing the lead in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”) teleports into the ancient library, rips a page out of a magic book, and walks through a portal that opens onto downtown London. He and his henchmen are chased by a hooded figure, who begins to engage them in combat that’s not quite like anything you’ve ever seen before.

READ MORE: Marvel Cinematic Universe Music Analyzed In A Wonderful New Video Essay

Punches are thrown and blasts of enchanted light are fired (the choreography here is a touch clearer and more enjoyably kinetic than we’re used to in these movies), but the brunt of the fighting is done by altering the dimensions of reality itself. With a wave of their hands, these characters can weaponize the world around them, folding and shrinking and warping the scenery in hexagonal patterns of death. The individual effects can all be traced back to other movies, but Derrickson combines them in breathless new ways, and his (justified) commitment to a single trick is one of the biggest gambles in MCU history.

The hooded monk reenters the picture after Strange’s precious hands are destroyed in his stupid, stupid, very stupid car accident, and he journeys to the mountains of Kathmandu in desperate search of a cure. It’s there that our hero meets the Ancient One (Tilda fucking Swinton), a bald and seemingly immortal Celtic woman who has learned how to harness the mystic arts to do all sorts of cool stuff. The Morpheus to Strange’s Neo, the Ancient One leads the former surgeon into untold years of training montages, she and her trusty assistants Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Wong (Benedict Wong) helping the newbie to learn magic in much the same way as he once learned medicine.

At some point along the way, Strange learns to submit his ego to his superpowers, and he puts his own demons on hold in order to battle the giant one that Kaecilius is trying to summon to Earth. Cumberbatch is such an inherently watchable actor that it’s easy to overlook the vagueness of his character’s personal transformation, but it may have been a bit of a lost cause with stakes that are so high — when the fate of an entire planet hangs in the balance, it’s hard to establish a personal motivation for someone to save it. You save the world because there really isn’t any other option, but desire tends to be a lot more interesting than need.

It’s a typical Marvel pitfall in a movie that trips into many of them. The villain is severely underwritten (condolences to Mikkelsen’s hardcore fans), Strange’s love interest is an afterthought (oh, right, Rachel McAdams plays his co-worker ex), and the technology used to bring the story to life is still lagging behind the imaginations of the filmmakers who are wielding it (it’s 2016, and we still can’t get a CGI body to fall realistically). Worst of all, “Doctor Strange” more dramatically underlines Marvel’s gender bias than any previous film, if only because there’s a striking contrast between the trite dude superhero and the mesmerizing lady guru who passes her power onto him. It feels telling that the most beautifully written female character in the MCU is so explicitly androgynous.

But if the usual Marvel headaches feel unusually pronounced here, it’s only because this film does so much to transcend them. “Captain America: Civil War” was bogged down by surface-level squabbles about the ethics of power and it looked like an episode of a network TV show; this movie is obstinately about nothing and it looks like an acid trip. “Avengers: Age of Ultron” had more characters than it knew what to do with; this has approximately 10 speaking parts (11 if you count Stan Lee). “Ant-Man” cast Atlanta as San Francisco; “Doctor Strange” lets Nepal, Hong Kong, London, and New York all play themselves. That’s not all — miracle of miracles, there’s finally a Marvel movie with a memorable, personality-driven score! That’s what you get when you hire Michael Giacchino.

Finally, for the first time since “The Avengers,” the action scenes are special. Derrickson doesn’t create any sequences that are fluid and symphonic as that film’s Manhattan fight, but he compensates for that lack of grace with a surplus of wonder, contradicting time with space in order to create unique battles that outshine their familiar stakes (and actually take advantage of 3D!). And, dodgy CG aside, remember how cool it was when Yoda finally threw down at the end of “Attack of the Clones?” Watching Tilda Swinton roll up her sleeves is better — way better.

If Marvel often gets more credit for being “weird” than they deserve — some fans nearly tore ligaments in their arms trying to pat themselves on the back for helping a movie about a talking raccoon and a humanoid tree become the biggest hit of the 2014 summer movie season — it’s because they do such a good job of wrapping nerd lore into traditional Hollywood fare. Films like “Guardians of the Galaxy” only feel like such risky high-wire acts because the safety nets have been so cleverly hidden just out of sight. That holds true for much of “Doctor Strange” as well. And yet, it’s one thing to take a new world and make it feel familiar, and quite another to take a familiar word and show us new ways of looking at it. This is the first chapter of the MCU that accomplishes that second, more difficult, more thrilling task, and that bodes well for a better, stranger tomorrow for the MCU.

“You wonder what I see in your future?” The Ancient One asks our hero? “Possibility.” She’s not the only one.

“Doctor Strange” opens in theaters on Friday, November 4.

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Reviews (7)

Doctor Strange is a visually interesting movie whose value lies solely in a completionist desire to stay current with the MCU. I was impressed enough with how it looked to see it twice, and I don't think I've ever re-watched a movie with so little to offer the second time around. Benedict Cumberbatch's American accent is perhaps the most distracting I've ever heard.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with Doctor Strange as a movie, it just failed to capture my attention. I liked exploring the concept of sorcery since it hadn't been done in the MCU before, and the trippy visuals were engaging. However, I finished the movie feeling neutral towards the character. I knew he would be playing a huge role in the MCU going forward, but I just couldn't bring myself to care.

Doctor Strange is a fantastic addition to the MCU and the first time were are truly introduced to magic in the universe. Love the growth Strange shows throughout and the fight scenes are still some of the most inventive the MCU has ever had. Looks terrific.

I wasn't sure whether I'd like Doctor Strange or not going into the movie, but it definitely exceeded my expectations. The visuals were impressive, Benedict Cumberbatch plays an incredible Doctor Strange, and although it felt very different from the other Marvel movies before it, that works here.

Doctor Strange is a trip.

In keeping with the more trippy and outlandish power set of the future Sorceror Supreme, the movie has incredible visuals that give it a unique style and flourish.

The standout actors conveniently hold the roles of the primary protagonist and antagonist, Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange and Mads Mikkelsen as Kaecilius. They are joined by several great performers who round out the cast and add further depth.

However, despite everything the movie does right, it does feel somewhat out of step with the rest of the MCU. As the genres have expanded, and Phase 4 has taken the MCU in dozens of directions, it may sit more comfortably in the eclectic catalog, but as far as the Infinity Saga goes, it didn't quite resonate.

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Doctor Strange manages to expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe while also telling a satisfying story in its own isolated corner.

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‘doctor strange in the multiverse of madness’ review: the good, the bad and the scary.

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Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is a mostly terrific return to the magical misadventures of Stephen Strange and friends, though I’ve spent the last day or so pondering whether the film’s primary conflict really works.

While the movie is incredibly entertaining and full of fun twists and turns, one character’s arc left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. There’s also something of a disconnect between Spider-Man: No Way Home and Multiverse that left me feeling a bit letdown.

Still, these are ultimately small quibbles with a movie I mostly enjoyed a great deal. Let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the scary of Doctor Strange 2.

Spoilers follow.

The premise of the film is fairly straightforward as far as superhero movies go.

A young teenager, America Chavez (Xochitl Gómez) is on the run from demons who want to kill her and take her very special superpower: The ability to traverse the multiverse.

Chavez makes her way to Earth-616, the version of our planet that exists within the fiction of the MCU, pursued by a giant octopus demon. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Wong (Benedict Wong) save her before she’s devoured.

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After some convincing, America explains what’s going on, and how she was just recently trying to get to a magical spell book—the Darkhold’s counterpart, the Book of Vishanti—accompanied by a different version of Doctor Strange who ultimately ended up turning on her, attempting to take her power rather than let it fall into the talons of the demon that was pursuing them. That version of Strange is dead now.

Strange and Wong send her to the magical fortress of Kamar-Taj in order to protect her from the demons. They also discover that the demon pursuing Chavez was summoned via witchcraft, so Strange pays a visit to an old friend: Wanda Maximoff. He thinks she might be able to help, but he’s very, very mistaken.

Wanda appears to be living a normal life in the country, tending to her orchard and her animals. She claims to have left magic behind her and expresses regret for her actions in Westview (if you haven’t seen WandaVision much of this film will not make sense; also, it’s the best MCU live-action show so far so please go watch it!)

Strange tells her it’s okay. Mistakes were made but she set things right.

At this point, viewers should be scratching their heads. We saw Wanda with the Darkhold, an evil magical tome, at the end of WandaVision, clearly pursuing magic with a newfound intensity. She’s clearly lying to Strange about leaving magic behind her, and this becomes even more apparent when she tells him, moments later, to “bring America here” where Wanda can protect her.

When Strange stops in his tracks with a puzzled look on his face, Wanda says, “You didn’t tell me her name, did you?”

The Scarlett Witch

Suddenly the orchard gives way to a forest of dead trees, a blood red sky. The illusion vanishes, replaced by death and decay.

This is the big twist. Wanda, it turns out, is the one who has sent demons out to track down America. Wanda, clearly possessed by the Darkhold, is the villain. She tells Strange that he can bring her the girl, or the Scarlett Witch can come and take her by force. He won’t give her up, so Wanda goes to Kamar-Taj and lays waste to it despite the dozens of sorcerers defending it.

It’s a great twist. I certainly wasn’t expecting Scarlett Witch to be the villain, though clearly there were plenty of hints along the way. We should have suspected it when Wanda took Agatha’s evil spell book and began studying it. The trailers for Multiverse masked the fact that Wanda was the bad guy, but not entirely. There were clues.

WandaVision All Over Again

Still, there’s something about the premise here that kind of bugs me. I think it’s perfectly plausible that Wanda would go full villain with the Darkhold, but haven’t we kind of done all of this before? WandaVision spun a mysterious and enthralling tale all about Wanda taking over a small town and its inhabitants in order to create the family she always wanted.

Wanda cast such a masterful spell that even she forgot the truth for awhile, believing that Vision (Paul Bettany) was still alive. Conjuring two children from thin air. Creating a false reality from the sitcoms she watched as a kid. She bent the fabric of reality, took over the minds of thousands of people, and wrapped her entire illusion in a powerful force field that was almost impossible to penetrate.

By the end, Wanda has realized that what she did was wrong, and that at least some of what she did was influenced and manipulated by Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) another powerful witch who used Wanda’s own illusion against her.

The problem I have with Wanda in Multiverse is simply that it feels like we’re retreading the exact same ground. Wanda went way, way over the top and crossed a ton of moral and ethical lines to bring Vision back from the dead. She ultimately had to reckon with these transgressions, let go of the ghost, and leave Westview—and her fake family—for good.

Fast forward to Multiverse and that entire arc is simply repeated. Wanda is, once again, crossing all sorts of lines in order to get to her real sons—the Billy and Tommy from other universes where they were actually born rather than conjured. Granted, she is being influenced by both her lasting grief and the dark magic of the Darkhold, but that doesn’t really change the narrative recycling that’s going on.

I liked the character arc Wanda had in WandaVision. She starts out as ignorant of what’s actually going on as everyone else. When she learns the truth, she doubles down rather than face just how messed up her actions have been. She refuses to see how the pain she’s causing others matters, but even Vision can tell that what she’s doing is wrong. By the time she finally has her showdown with Agatha, she’s realized that what she’s doing is cruel and immoral and she walks away from it all.

And now, in Multiverse, she goes through this entire arc all over again, except instead of the really fascinating mind control and illusion she employs in Westview, she now sends demons and bolts of red magic down to kill everyone in her path.

Christine, Strange and America

Granted, this leads to some great scary moments, and a few surprisingly violent scenes.

The Illuminati

On Earth-838, Strange and Chavez encounter the Illuminati, a group of powerful superheroes that don’t exist in quite the same fashion on Earth-616. The Illuminati are comprised of:

• Sorcerer Supreme, Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor)
• Professor X (Patrick Stewart)
• Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell)
• Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic (John Krasinski)
• Maria Rambeau / Captain Marvel (Lashana Lynch)
• Black Bolt (Anson Mount)

The Illuminati reveal to Strange that in their war against Thanos, their version of Strange got his hands on the Darkhold and went completely insane. When he realized the damage he caused, it was too late and the other members of the organization he founded were forced to put him down. It looks like they’re going to do the same to Strange when the Scarlett Witch shows up, possessing the body of this world’s Wanda.

She kills almost all of them (only Baron Mordo survives) one by one in pretty gruesome ways, showing just how enormously powerful Scarlett Witch truly is. (Black Bolt’s death was straight out of a horror movie).

When Wanda then pursues Strange, Christine (Rachel McAdams) and America through some underground tunnels, director Sam Raimi (of Evil Dead fame) dials up the fear a few more notches.

And from here things just get weirder and darker and more exciting. Strange meets yet another version of himself—this one possessed by the Darkhold—who he has to fight in a battle of magical musical notes, one of the more clever cinematic magician duels I’ve encountered.

Later, he uses the forbidden ‘dream walking’ spell to inhabit the dead body of one of his alternative selves, leading to a zombie Doctor Strange confrontation with the Scarlett Witch that is completely bonkers.

Doctor Strange I presume

Love Conquers All

In the end, Chavez figures out that the only way to stop Wanda isn’t by fighting her (the only thing anyone has tried so far) but by giving her what she wants. Finally in control of her powers, Chavez opens a portal back to Earth-838 and the home of Wanda and her two sons. The boys are terrified of the woman before them. They run screaming to their real mother.

Strange had asked Wanda earlier what she intended to do with the real mom of the boys in the other universe and she didn’t have a good answer. When actually confronted with the reality of the situation, even the Darkhold’s evil influence buckles. She’s become a monster, something her own children find terrifying. She pleads and begs but it’s obvious that neither magic nor persuasion can change reality.

Wanda-838 walks up to her, a look of pity and compassion on her face, and says “Don’t worry. They will be loved.”

And so in the end, love saves the day. Wanda returns to her mountain temple and destroys every copy of the Darkhold across the multiverse. She’s “killed” in the crumbling ruins of her mountaintop retreat as it falls. (There’s no way she’s actually dead—even if Wanda-616 is no more, the multiverse gives infinite options for character revival).

This was a good way to wrap things up, though I think the movie overall lacked some of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s basic humanity. In that film, Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) entire motivation is not to simply fight and defeat the bad guys, but to save them. Here, however, nobody talks about saving Wanda even though she’s clearly possessed by an evil book. And sure, she was also the villain of WandaVision but her motives are, if not pure, then at least born out of love. Tainted but not all evil.

Doctor Strange

All told, I enjoyed this movie a great deal. I enjoyed the darker spin on the MCU, the shocking deaths and more violent, bloody ways that those deaths occurred. This phase of the MCU is shaping up to be one of its best, with more magic and space/time/dimensional travel and just a bit more of each director’s unique mark on each film. The wide array of different TV shows, from What If...? to Moon Knight, on top of the MCU films means there’s a ton of variety and deeper, more layered stories to tell than ever before, which helps balance out the superhero fatigue many viewers are feeling by now.

Say what you will about Eternals, I actually enjoyed that movie and thought that it did something very different from any other MCU film though, like so many movies these days, it ran much too long. Doctor Strange felt very different from any other MCU movie also while also avoiding the long run-time, clocking in at a near-perfect 2 hours and 6 minutes long. It’s definitely worth the price of admission and you should see it on the big screen if you can.

Score: 4/5 Stars

Random Thoughts

• I’m a little disappointed that the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home didn’t play more directly into this movie. It’s just...strange...that Peter Parker and Doctor Strange screw up a spell that accidentally creates cracks and rifts in the multiverse but somehow this massive magical mishap has essentially zero impact on a movie titled Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. I don’t get it. Surely they could have stitched the two films together a bit more?
• I love that John Krasinski was cast as Reed Richards and I genuinely hope that we get him in whatever Fantastic Four project Disney and Marvel are cooking up. I also loved this version of Professor X and his comic book inspired “wheel chair” and the cool way he enters Wanda’s mind.
• The very end of the movie (before the post-credits scenes, which I discuss in this post ) is so great. Strange is all happy and cocksure, leaving the Sanctum Sanctorum for a nice walk around town when he buckles over screaming and a third eye pops out of his forehead, just like the evil Strange in the ruined Earth he visited. I love how abrupt and surprising it was.
• Perhaps some of the disconnect or retreading of old ground in The Multiverse of Madness is because director Sam Raimi didn’t actually watch the entire run of WandaVision, relying on key moments to help inform his direction—though screenwriter Michael Waldron did. Raimi is a talented director but you’d think it would be a basic requirement to watch one of the most crucial pieces leading up to this story before making the movie.
• The next Disney+ MCU show is Ms. Marvel (June 8th) which I’m honestly not really looking forward to (I’m still finishing up Moon Knight which I like quite a lot so far, but I’m not sure we need quite so many MCU TV shows back to back). The next MCU feature film is Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8th) which I think looks great . But I love most everything Waititi does, so I’m a little biased.

What did you think of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook . You should also sign up for my newsletter and follow me here on this blog and on my YouTube channel .

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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

• Doctor Strange teams up with a mysterious teenage girl who can travel across multiverses, to battle other-universe versions of himself which threaten to wipe out the multiverse. They seek help from the Scarlet Witch, Wong and others.
• Following the events of Spider-Man No Way Home, Doctor Strange unwittingly casts a forbidden spell that accidentally opens up the multiverse. With help from Wong and Scarlet Witch, Strange confronts various versions of himself as well as teaming up with the young America Chavez while traveling through various realities and working to restore reality as he knows it. Along the way, Strange and his allies realize they must take on a powerful new adversary who seeks to take over the multiverse. — Blazer346
• Bizarre visions of a mysterious teenage girl stranded in an unfamiliar dimension haunt Dr Stephen Strange shortly after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Eternals (2021) . Indeed, a lot has changed since Doctor Strange (2016) . But when Strange encounters the extraordinary girl from his dreams, the delicate boundaries between the current reality and an unfathomable alternate world start to collapse. Before long, horrific creatures working for nefarious forces wreak chaos, fusing parallel universes into a dangerous reality. Can Sorcerer Supreme Wong and invincible Wanda Maximoff help Strange stop the new adversary before the Multiverse of Madness consumes everything? — Nick Riganas
• Shortly after the events of "Spider-Man: No Way Home", Doctor Strange has been having unusual dreams about a young teenage girl with the ability to open inter dimensional portals. Strange soon learns that America Chavez is the teenager with that ability. In order to learn more about the multiverse, Strange decides to enlist Wanda, who has been in hiding since the Westview incident in "WandaVision". But Stephen soon learns that Wanda has studied the Dark Hold and she is fixated on obtaining America's powers so that she can reunite with her children in a different universe. Stephen's effort on protecting America leads to them being stranded on Earth-838. Stephen decides to rely on an alternate version of Christine Palmer on getting the Book of Vishanti, which is located in the gap junction, so that America can have better control over her powers, but at the same time Stephen must figure out how to free Wanda from the Dark Hold before she destroys the multiverse. — dawsonpersi
• America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) (A teenager who has the ability to travel between dimensions by punching open doorways) and a version of Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) (A neurosurgeon who became a Master of the Mystic Arts following a career-ending car accident) are chased by a demon in the space between universes while searching for the Book of Vishanti. That Strange is killed and Chavez accidentally creates a portal that transports herself and Strange's corpse to Earth-616, where that universe's version of Strange rescues Chavez from another demon with help from the Sorcerer Supreme, Wong (Benedict Wong) (The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth-616 and Strange's mentor and friend). Chavez explains that the beings are hunting her because she has the power to travel through the multiverse. She cant control her powers and it manifests only when she is really frightened. Chavez says that the other Strange reached the book of Vishanti (which would give him the powers to defeat the demon), but that's when the Demon caught up with them and killed Strange. Chavez shows them the dead Strange's corpse as proof. Recognizing witchcraft runes, Strange consults Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) (A former Avenger gone rogue who can harness chaos magic, engage in telepathy and telekinesis, and alter reality) for help but realizes that she is responsible for the attacks. After acquiring the Darkhold (the book of the damned that corrupts everyone) and becoming the Scarlet Witch, Maximoff believes that controlling Chavez's powers will allow her to reunite (by travelling to a different Universe, where they are still alive) with Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne), the children she created during her time in Westview. Maximoff gives an ultimatum to surrender Chavez by sundown. When Strange refuses to surrender Chavez, Maximoff attacks Kamar-Taj, killing many sorcerers. Under stress, Chavez accidentally transports herself and Strange to Earth-838 (from where she cant go back as she cant control her powers. CHavez herself doesn't have a counterpart in any other universe) while Maximoff uses the Darkhold to "dream-walk" (Projecting her consciousness into her alternate from any other Universe), taking control of her Earth-838 counterpart, who lives a suburban life with her own Billy and Tommy. A surviving sorceress sacrifices herself to destroy the Darkhold and break the dream-walk. Enraged, Maximoff forces Wong to lead her to Mount Wundagore, the source of the Darkhold's power, to reestablish the dream-walk. There Maximoff realizes that Wundagore is a throne that has been waiting for her arrival. She was meant to rule all the multiverses. While searching for help, Strange and Chavez are apprehended by Earth-838's Sorcerer Supreme, Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) (In this Universe Strange died trying to protect the Earth from Thanos), and brought before the Illuminati, a group consisting of Mordo, Peggy Carter / Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell), Blackagar Boltagon / Black Bolt (Anson Mount), Maria Rambeau / Captain Marvel (Lashana Lynch), Reed Richards (John Krasinski) (A member of the Fantastic 4), and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). They explain that through reckless use of their universe's Darkhold in an attempt to defeat Thanos, Earth-838's Strange triggered a universe-destroying "incursion" (when boundaries between 2 universes are blurred, they collide, destroying one of both of the universes). After defeating Thanos (They found the book of Vishanti and used its powers to kill Thanos), the Illuminati executed their Strange to prevent him from causing more harm. Mordo believes that Earth-616's Strange is similarly dangerous, but Maximoff reestablishes her dream-walk at Mount Wundagore and arrives in her Earth-838 counterpart's body before they can pass judgment. She kills all of the Illuminati except Mordo, whom Strange subdues before fleeing with Chavez. The two escape with help from the Earth-838 counterpart of Strange's ex-fiance, Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) (An emergency surgeon who was a colleague and lover of Strange), a scientist working with the Illuminati. Before dying Xavier had told Strange that 838 had the book of Vishanti. Strange convinces Palmer to take him to the way-point that leads to the book of Vishanti. Strange, Chavez and Palmer enter the space between universes to find the Book of Vishanti, which is the antithesis to the Darkhold, but Maximoff appears and destroys it. She then takes over Chavez's mind, using her powers to send the others to an incursion-destroyed universe. She also uses Chavez to send her back to Earth 616, where Maximoff disconnects the dream-walk with her 838 self. Strange defeats the destroyed universe's Strange, who has been corrupted by his universe's Darkhold, and uses it to dream-walk into the body of his deceased counterpart on Earth-616. With Wong's help, Strange saves Chavez from Maximoff as she tries to take Chavez's powers, and encourages Chavez to use her abilities. She transports Maximoff to Earth-838, where she sees Billy and Tommy recoil from her (the Wanda 616 who was in SCarlett witch headgear) in fear while crying for their real mother (whom Wanda 616 tossed aside when she entered the 616 universe). Realizing the error of her ways, Maximoff-616 relents and uses her powers to bring down Mount Wundagore, simultaneously destroying all copies of the Darkhold throughout the multiverse and apparently sacrificing herself in the process. Chavez returns Strange and Palmer to their respective universes. Sometime later, Kamar-Taj is repaired and the surviving sorcerers, joined by Chavez, continue training. Strange develops a third eye as a result of using the Darkhold and dream-walking into a corpse. In a mid-credits scene: Strange is approached by a sorceress who warns him that his actions have triggered an incursion that he must help fix. Strange follows her into the Dark Dimension.

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After the new ‘Dr. Strange’ movie, it’s time for an intervention with the Marvel Cinematic Universe

This essay includes spoilers for “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”

Last weekend, I saw “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” just like you wanted me to, Marvel Studios, even though its title sounded like something H.P. Lovecraft would write and the Omicron sequel is playing just about everywhere.

It was my first movie in a theater since November, and I went for the same reason I think most of us did: to see Professor Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men, finally appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And then you straight up murdered him.

This, Marvel, is how you introduced mutants, the most interesting, varied and socially relevant characters in all of superhero comics, to the MCU: You took their founder, whose message of peaceful coexistence is often compared to that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and snapped his neck right in front of us. Not only that, you had him killed by Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, who in the comic books was responsible for the total decimation of mutants and also mutant storylines for over a decade.

This, Marvel, is how you introduced mutants, the most interesting, varied and socially relevant characters in all of superhero comics, to the MCU.

How dare you, sir. If I had a glove I would toss it to the ground, and it would be pistols at dawn.

The thing is, the murder of Professor X and the other Illuminati doesn’t even make sense. These are seven characters who defeated Thanos by themselves . They’ve had the existence of their entire universe threatened by the incursion of another universe — enjoy the next 10 years of stories, MCU Fans! — and survived. But supposedly they’re not capable of handling one crazy magician?

And God, how sad it is to be describing Wanda Maximoff like that. You spent an entire season of TV and so many movies building up this compelling portrait of a woman who has suffered greatly and grown through it all. Then suddenly overnight she has completely lost her mind.

What’s worse, it’s not even Wanda herself choosing these things; it’s this evil Scarlet Witch thing you came up with that is possessing her. So even as you have made her more powerful than ever, you’ve also completely stripped the character of her agency. No wonder the actress Elizabeth Olson is portrayed hiding in a bunker waiting for the whole thing to end. You’ve taken the strongest female character in the MCU—and also maybe its best actress—and reduced her to the appalling stereotype of the hysterical woman. To quote the prophet Chandler Bing, could you be more afraid of strong women?

You’ve taken the strongest female character in the MCU—and also maybe its best actress—and reduced her to the appalling stereotype of the hysterical woman.

This is why you needed to execute Professor X and his teammates in front of us. The film’s co-writer Michael Waldron has admitted as much: As he was writing the script, he told io9 , he realized, “Man, my second act is kind of boring right now, I’m just going to write in all this crazy s—.” Well, mission accomplished, Michael.

“Multiverse” introduces America Chavez, the universe-hopping Latina teenager with two moms, and she is wonderful in every way. That scene where she and Doctor Strange fall between realities is super trippy; I would like a whole movie about the Marvel universe where everything is just paint (#MPU), please and thank you. But everything around her is more tired than Bruce Campbell’s Pizza Poppa vendor after three weeks of having had to attack himself. Wanda is trapped in the girdle you’ve forced her to wear, and the one thing that unfortunately appears to be true in every version of the MCU is that Doctor Strange is an absolute pill. It’s like they took Tony Stark and surgically removed any trace of charisma. Strange is a humorless know-it-all with a terrible accent—no one in New York talks that way, no one — who insists on maintaining a truly terrible dye job. Seriously, if you can do magic, why are you still dyeing your hair? And why in such a weird and creepy way?

At the end of the day, the only true statement in “Multiverse” is the Illuminati’s assertion that in every universe, Doctor Strange turns out to be the destroyer of worlds. And the thing that he kills is my interest.

As Michael Waldron was writing the script, he told io9, he realized, “Man, my second act is kind of boring right now, I’m just going to write in all this crazy s—.” Well, mission accomplished.

Marvel, I know that you delight in a reaction like this. You asked the sweet octogenarian Sir Patrick Stewart, who spent the many months of lockdown reading us all of Shakespeare’s sonnets on Twitter, to deliver one of the most realistic versions of a head snap I’ve ever seen. You also imploded Black Bolt’s head, on the very weekend that Bolt actor Anson Mount’s great new Star Trek show “Strange New Worlds” was debuting, and cut Peggy Carter in two— with her own shield-— precisely so that people would be talking about the film for weeks and months after it’s over, would remember it as iconic despite the fact it was actually dull.

You even introduced Reed Richards, leader of the Fantastic Four, and cast John Krasinksi, who the internet has been clamoring to see in the role. In the small amount of time you gave him, he delivered a more thoughtful and interesting portrait of that character than we have seen onscreen or in the comics. Instead of yet another straight white male Marvel know-it-all, you gave us a guy whose work seems to have left him touched with wonder and immensely kind. You gave us that character, and then you had Wanda flay him into strips like string cheese.

I’m sure you think doing this makes you look punk and edgy. You took all the toys that you know the fans want and then smashed them in front of us. You also wiped out a group of heroes more diverse than any Avengers squads that didn’t consist of at least twice as many people. Take that, woke snowflakes! But you don’t have to live with any consequences, because hey, it’s a multiverse. There’s plenty of other Charles Xaviers out there, right?

In all of pop culture, there is no more diverse group of heroes than the X-Men, nor any set of characters whose stories speak more to the struggles for justice we face in our society today.

But your story universe is supposed to embrace hope where there is no hope. In every movie you insist on putting the humanity of your characters at the center of their storylines. And now you’re turning horrific acts of violence into fanboy Easter eggs and outrage machines? What are you, Facebook?

At some point in the not-too-distant future, you’re going to introduce the X-Men universe properly. And you may think you will be able to chew up their intellectual property like locusts at an all-you-can-eat buffet. But mutants have survived far worse than your desperate need to keep making billion dollar movies. They survived ’90s comics, where everything was enormous guns and ridiculous bodies. They survived Marvel Comics C.E.O. Ike Perlmutter insisting in the 2000s that his editors do literally nothing with X-Men characters for years, because 20th Century Fox owned the rights to the characters in the movies. Did you see “X-Men: Apocalypse?” They survived that .

You may have made Charles Xavier into your chump; by the way, it’s probably the last time Patrick Stewart will play that role, and you had him go out like that. Thanks a lot.

But the rest of that franchise will not go down so easily. And you shouldn’t want them to. You shouldn’t want to use mutant characters just to prop up some weak character or tired franchise. In all of pop culture, there is no more diverse group of heroes than the X-Men, nor any set of characters whose stories speak more to the struggles for justice we face in our society today. These are tales of children confronted by frightening acts of prejudice, who respond with courage and generosity. They are stories about embracing your differences rather than hiding them, about learning that it is precisely the things that make you different that make you special and strong. X-Men books show us where fear will take us as a society, and celebrate the capacity of our found communities to overcome, save and renew. These are the kinds of ideas Marvel celebrates.

Or at least, they are in some universe.

Jim McDermott, S.J., is an associate editor at America .

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