Doctor Strange

One of the more interesting superheroes to come out of Marvel Comics’ incredible burst or creativity during the 1960s was Doctor Strange. First appearing in Strange Tales #110, he was the brainchild of idiosyncratic artist Steve Ditko and was inspired by stories of black magic and the radio adventure serial Chandu the Magician. The comic book introduced the concept of mysticism into the Marvel Universe and, with its surrealistic imagery, anticipated the psychedelic counterculture of the latter part of the decade.

Doctor Strange (2016) is the 14th film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and continues the company’s successful formula that has repeatedly made them box office darlings. Let’s face it, with a Marvel movie you know exactly what you’re going to get and audiences take comfort in that, especially during these uncertain times. While this movie does not divert from their tried and true formula (if it ain’t broke…), they are finding new ways to present it through inspired casting and impressive-looking visuals.

Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is an arrogant and brilliant neurosurgeon whose life changes radically when he gets into a car accident that damages his hands, rendering him unable to perform surgeries. Benedict Cumberbatch is superb in these early scenes as an egomaniac doctor reminiscent of Hugh Laurie’s conceited medical profession on the popular television program House M.D. He’s not above humiliating a colleague (Michael Stuhlbarg) he feels is beneath him while charming an attractive surgeon (Rachel McAdams) and is very selective in the cases he takes on. Cumberbatch nails the cool and aloof nature of Strange and is not afraid to portray him initially as a conceited prick.

Devastated, Strange travels to Nepal after meeting with a paraplegic man (Benjamin Bratt) that was mysteriously healed at a place known as Kamar-Taj. He meets the enigmatic Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who, in turn, introduces him to the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). She opens his eyes to a whole new world or, rather, worlds and dimensions while also altering the way he sees things, like being able to exist on the astral plane. The guided tour through the multiverse is a wonderfully trippy sequence that fuses the philosophical mumbo jumbo of The Matrix (1999) with the hallucinogenic imagery of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Strange is also schooled in the ways of the mystic arts that playfully blends aspects of the Harry Potter movies (especially objects that have a life of their own) with period martial arts movies from the 1970s. Not surprisingly, the brilliant man is a quick learner, taking the initiative and figuring out how to astral project before he’s taught how to do so.

Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), a former pupil of the Ancient One, and now a renegade sorcerer, has stolen pages from one of her sacred tomes, which allows him to manipulate time. He wants to draw power from the Dark Dimension and acquire eternal life by summoning the powerful Dormammu. Naturally, a reluctant Strange is enlisted to stop Kaecilius and save the world.

The most engaging Marvel movies feature inspired casting choices and, in this respect, Doctor Strange excels with the casting of Cumberbatch as Strange. He gets the self-importance of the character while also displaying fantastic comic timing with the humorous observations that are sprinkled lightly throughout the movie. With her otherworldly presence, Tilda Swinton is ideally cast as the benevolent Ancient One, an immortal being that protects the world from other dimensions but might not be as benign as she appears to be. Chiwetel Ejiofor brings a quiet dignity to Mordo whose ideology clashes with Strange’s own only for it to change when he discovers something about the Ancient One late in the movie.

Doctor Strange is the first Marvel movie to use 3D effectively as evident in an eye-popping sequence where Kaecilius and his followers chase Strange and Mordo through the streets of New York City, bending and manipulating matter so that buildings split apart and fold in on themselves, taking a similar scene in Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) to a whole other level of complexity and scale. Furthermore, in a nice touch, when Strange enters the Dark Dimension to have it out with Dormammu, the filmmakers bring Ditko’s mind-altering artwork vividly to life. Along with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Doctor Strange is the most visually rich Marvel movie to date with a distinctive look that differentiates it from the others.

It may be odd to say and not really stretch if you think about it, but Doctor Strange is also the most intellectual effort in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – albeit in a superficial, popcorn movie kind of way, if that makes any sense. There are several scenes that involve characters arguing or expounding large chunks of dialogue about notions of time and space and the dangers of manipulating them. While the movie features the requisite battles between super-powered beings, it attempts to make them different visually from other Marvel fare. To this end, Strange fights one of Kaecilius’ followers on the astral plane while Rachel McAdams’ doctor tries to revive his physical body. I also like that the climactic battle circumvents the traditional slugfest by having our hero outwit the villain with his intellect. There’s a lot to like about Doctor Strange and I am curious to see where they go with this character.

To the Wonder

With The Tree of Life (2011), filmmaker Terrence Malick not only fully embraced non-linear storytelling but also made a semi-autobiographical film as it was partially inspired by his experiences growing up in Central Texas. The famously secretive filmmaker followed this film with To the Wonder (2012), which is loosely based on his second marriage to a Parisian whom he met in France during a lengthy self-imposed exile from filmmaking. She had a young daughter and soon the three of them moved to Austin, Texas. She tried to adapt to her new surroundings while he would leave them for long periods of time without explanation. This film uses these scant known autobiographical details as a loose structure for Malick to push the style he utilized so brilliantly in The Tree of Life to further extremes.

We meet the happy couple frolicking in Paris and very much in love. Neil (Ben Affleck) is an American traveling through Europe and Marina (Olga Kurylenko) is a Ukrainian divorcee with a ten-year-old daughter (Tatiana Chiline). Malick’s restless camera hovers close to the lovers conveying a believable intimacy between them while also marveling at the world around them – most impressively Mont St. Michel, the island abbey located off the coast of Normandy. It is a breathtaking combination of ancient architecture and expansive vistas of a beach at low tide that seems to go on forever.

At times it feels like we are intruding on these people’s most personal moments and privy to their innermost thoughts thanks to Marina’s voiceover musings. She shares her feelings for Neil: “I’ll go wherever you go,” and what she tells him: “If I left you because you didn’t want to marry me, it would mean I didn’t love you. I don’t expect anything. Just to go a little of our way together.” It is a refreshingly honest and candid expression of her feelings for him.

The couple is soon relocated to his hometown in Oklahoma and Malick manages to find visual splendor in suburbia. Olga Kurylenko is a revelation in these early scenes. Not only does Malick’s camera love her but she acts naturally in his very intimate and Expressionistic style. She also does a great job conveying Marina’s emotional fearlessness – a willingness to be honest with her feelings towards the man she loves. Marina is the kind of beautiful free spirit Malick loves to populate his films, from the childlike Holly in Badlands (1973) to Abby in Days of Heaven (1978).

Initially, Ben Affleck seems like an odd choice to star in a Malick film as his mannered style of acting would seem at odds with the filmmaker’s loose, improvisational approach. Early on, in the Europe scenes the actor comes off as a little stiff but there is definitely chemistry between him and Kurylenko, which only deepens when they go stateside. As the film progresses and Neil becomes more distant from Marina, it makes more sense why Malick cast Affleck. Like the equally mannered Richard Gere in Days of Heaven, Affleck portrays a man unable to fully embrace the little moments in life that most of us take for granted but that populate Malick’s films. Affleck is excellent at playing controlled, emotionally detached characters and so when Neil begins freezing Marina out, the actor is at his finest.

Javier Bardem appears as a Catholic priest struggling with his faith. Malick depicts him as a somber, solitary figure and this is conveyed in the poignant visual of the actor walking down a deserted tree-lined street with leaves strewn on the ground. This understated image tells us so much about the character and is further reinforced by his voiceover thoughts. Even when walking among the happy attendees of a wedding ceremony he just presided over, he looks lonely, unable to connect with anyone except on a surface level. He confesses, via voiceover, that he’s going through the motions.

Eventually, Neil and Marina drift apart and she and her child return to Europe. Some time passes and he reconnects with a childhood friend named Jane (Rachel McAdams) who is coming off a failed relationship of her own. They fall in love, sharing a similar temperament. As he did with Neil and Marina’s courtship, Malick captures the intimacy of Neil and Jane’s embryonic love affair, but he doesn’t forget Marina, checking in to see how the fallout of her relationship with Neil has affected her. Not surprisingly, she is still haunted by him.

Known mostly for mainstream Hollywood films like Mean Girls (2004) and Sherlock Holmes (2009), it is interesting to see Rachel McAdams cast in such an overtly artsy film like To the Wonder. She’s well-cast as an earthy woman trying to keep her horse ranch. Her character is a striking contrast to the more ethereal Marina. McAdams is a good fit for Malick’s cinematic world.

Malick takes more artistic risks than any other living American filmmaker, following his own unique thematic preoccupations and repeating visual motifs to the point of coming the closest to self-parody with To the Wonder than ever before, but his actors buy into his cinematic vision so completely that their commitment to it helps legitimize what he’s trying to do.

This film is an incredible exploration into the nature of relationships as Malick wrestles with the notion of how one can fail while another thrives. Why is that? Is it timing? Chemistry? To the Wonder seems to suggest that there is also a certain alchemy, an unquantifiable element that draws people to one another and also keeps them together. Some people can make it work and some can’t for any number of reasons. Relationships take hard work and Malick understands that and conveys it better than most filmmakers. It’s almost cliché to say that To the Wonder isn’t for everyone and at this point in his career it looks like Malick isn’t going to change his approach to storytelling any time soon. He is more interested in making cinematic tone poems rather than traditional linear narratives and it’s great to see someone putting themselves out there like he does with every film.