‘Doctor Strange’ fails as
a superhero fantasy film
MARVEL
When the drugs hit in newly-legalized Massachusetts
At the core of cinema is
the uniquely human desire to
transcend our own bodies. The
earliest films were exhibitionist
displays of beauty and power —
muscle-bound men performing
athletic feats; graceful dancers
twirling
their
extravagant
skirts. Audiences
paid to observe
abilities and traits
that they did not
have themselves.
As
cinema
developed,
the
film
apparatus
became
one
of
voyeurism.
We
found
ourselves
watchers
of
secret gardens and passionate
trysts. Capra let us in on an
intimate
vision
of
heaven;
Hitchcock filled rooms with
our subconscious violent and
sexual desire.
The
superhero
film,
the
predominant cinematic pop-
cultural force, exists on a spec-
trum between exhibitionism
and voyeurism. These films
exhibit sexual bodies perform-
ing impossible tasks of speed
and strength and allow us to
both act as a voyeur to humans
receiving impossible abilities
and feel the emotions that come
with such transcendence. Con-
sider the scene in which we
jump across skyscrapers with
Spider-Man in the first person,
the scene when Michael B. Jor-
dan discovers his ability to fly
and cries out to the world with
JACOB RICH
Senior Arts Editor
joy in “Chronicle,” the scene
where Tony Stark brutalizes his
terrorist captors with his suit of
armor (can we call this particu-
lar phenomenon “Bushsploita-
tion?”).
And
on
its
surface,
“Doctor
Strange”
seems
to
satisfy
both
spectrums
of
fantasy
swimmingly.
It
concerns a secret
cabal of magicians
on the fringes of
Eastern
society,
and a traumatized Western
doctor who travels to them to
heal his broken body. We watch
as the laws of the unfeeling,
indifferent universe are bent
and broken until we understand
that everything, not nothing,
matters. It also presents us
with the same type of power-
slinging,
muscle-rippling
combat that so satisfies us in the
same way it did in the last eight
Marvel Studios films, only this
time with arcane spells instead
of bullets, alien powers and
mutant abilities.
But Doctor Strange, as a
character and an idea, simply
works better on the comic
book page than on the screen,
and uniquely so. Google Steve
Ditko’s original ’60s renditions
of Strange and observe the
manner in which spells are
juxtaposed
in
side-by-side
frames to be digested at the
speed the reader chooses. The
reader (“true believer,” as Stan
Lee would put it) is allowed an
enormous possibility space in
which their imagination fills in
the gaps of the already excellent
depiction of spacetime-bending
magic. But when these spells are
translated to the silver screen,
that possibility space between
frames is filled with … more
frames. 24 frames per second,
to be precise. It’s the perfect
number of frames to simulate
reality for the audience, as many
filmmakers
have
discovered
over the years.
This
process
literalizes
magic
to
an
uncomfortable
degree. Instead of marveling
(MARVELing?)
at
the
possibility of what real-life
magic could look like, we know
precisely what it would look like
— slightly above-average CGI.
And that’s just not as exciting,
not as effective a fantasy.
That’s
probably
about
enough film student jargon
for one review. And besides,
this film has just as many
problems
grounded
in
the
casually observable. My follow-
up research question is this:
How bad do I feel for Rachel
McAdams? This poor woman
has had to play the most basic,
vanilla girlfriend character in
more films than I could possibly
list here, though I shall now
try: “About Time,” “Midnight
in Paris,” “The Time Traveler’s
Wife” (she really loves time-
traveling, doesn’t she?), “The
Notebook,” “The Vow,” “Aloha,”
“Southpaw.” Oh, and “Doctor
Strange,” where she fills maybe
the least interesting superhero
girlfriend role I’ve ever seen.
But then again, she was really
good in “Spotlight,” and she has
a lot of money. My conclusion is
that I feel moderately bad for
Rachel McAdams.
Though
“Doctor
Strange”
as a whole is not as vanilla
as
McAdams’s
character
(Cumberbatch’s
American
accent is sexy, some Nolan-
esque action is good, some of
the
magical
transcendence
sequences
are
vaguely
structurally
innovative),
it
is merely a competent entry
into
the
Marvel
Cinematic
Universe.
Actually,
it
fails
in certain ways that most
other films in the MCU don’t.
The humor is flat and stale,
especially compared to Joss
Whedon’s rollicking jokes in
“The Avengers” (a Beyoncé joke
feels like a pathetic executive
board-manufactured
plea
to
hip millennial Twitter). The
romance
feels
sexless
and
droll compared to the gender-
neutral, broadly exploitative
excitement found in “Captain
America:
Civil
War.”
And
although
they’re
not
MCU
films,
the
superb
slow-mo
Quicksilver setpieces in Bryan
Singer’s
last
two
“X-Men”
films wipe the floor with the
climactic
time-manipulation
sequence in “Doctor Strange.”
“Doctor Strange” is the least
effective Marvel Studios film
since 2013’s “Thor: The Dark
World.”
“Captain
America:
Civil War” and even “Deadpool”
are the better superhero films
this year. In those films, my
voyeuristic,
exhibitionist
fanwankery
was
satisfied.
“Doctor
Strange”
left
me
yearning for much, much more.
C
“Doctor Strange”
Rave & Quality 16
Marvel Studios
Marvel misses the
mark with Benedict
Cumberbatch vehicle
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FILM REVIEW
6A — Monday, November 14, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com