Concept: Selfish surgeon becomes unselfish master of the mystic arts, Dr. Strange.

• Best Marvel Studios movie, period. Not necessarily the best movie based on a Marvel superhero—that prize goes to “Spider-Man 2” (2004), produced by Sony Studios. And it’s not the best superhero movie ever—that one goes to the animated “The Dark Knight Returns” (2012). But “Doctor Strange” is pretty darn good, better than all those Captain America, Iron Man and Avengers movies and all the rest and yes, even better than “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014).
• “Doctor Strange” begins with the reality-folding surrealism that Nolan delivered so uniquely in “Inception” (2010), making us think, “Cool, but I’ve seen it all before.” Then the film develops further into its own original and extremely imaginative directions, twisting reality, illusion and new age spirituality into one crazy, blazing ball.
• Although the doctor’s tagline is “Master of the Mystic Arts,” the mumbo-jumbo here is much more akin to Buddhism and Taoism, if it’s akin to anything at all. This is more like Stan Lee-ism, just some really crazy stuff from the guy who not only created the Dr. Strange character back in the 60s, but also created Spider-Man, the Hulk and most of the Marvel characters we know so well today.
• Stan Lee actually co-created the Dr. Strange character with comic-book master Steve Ditko, whose other great collaboration was The Amazing Spider-Man. But Stan Lee, in his genius, adapted his writing and stories to the style of the artist, and Ditko’s style had a weird, Eastern approach that fit the Dr. Strange adventures perfectly. Ditko produced his best art with Dr. Strange, and you can tell he just loved doing that character. The movie gets a lot of inspiration from the comic book character. So if you wonder “what the heck were these people smoking” when you’re watching the movie, you can thank (or blame) Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
• Why is this such a good movie? Here’s what the movie has—a continual use of splendid imagination, a deep respect and appreciation for the original (great) source material, lots of wildly entertaining action that spawns organically instead of just feeling like a bunch of action scenes thrown together, and, most of all, an awesome story (a surgeon loses his ability to operate after a maiming car crash, seeks healing from a distant Nepalese mystic and finds a lot more than a bandage).
• And we should also mention the amazing performance of Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange—amazing is the only kind of performance the guy knows how to give. However, I would have preferred that he keep his natural British accent rather than feigning the American speak; he does a fine job speaking like an American but he sounds better as a Brit and it would have fit the role of the uppity doctor better. They let Thor have a British accent, and he’s from Asgard, not London. But oh well, it’s a minor quibble for a great movie.
• My family and I paid to see this movie in 3D at the theater, except… it wasn’t in 3D. And the 2D projection was not as bright or as detailed as I had expected it to be. So I thought, OK, that’s weird. But an excellent movie will rivet you even if you’re watching it on a static-filled, old-fashioned tube TV. (If you don’t understand that reference, consider yourself lucky.) And it did—after about three minutes, we were really into the movie and all the defects didn’t hurt our enjoyment. We were later told by theater employees that the computer had loaded the wrong version of the movie into the projector. Kudos to AMC Theaters for addressing the issue by giving us free tickets to any future AMC movie showing.
• I think below is one of my favorite Wisey cameos, don’t you think?