I saw Marvel’s DOCTOR STRANGE while out in California a couple of weeks ago. I was there on an all expense paid trip by Walt Disney Studios to view the movie and interview the cast. Now that the movie has hit theaters I can finally give you my full review. I will do my best to not reveal any spoilers from the movie. I think I’ve been pretty good about not doing that in the past, especially when I saw movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron in a similar fashion. This was my third Marvel movie trip and it was awesome. I was able to see the movie and interview Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel McAdams, Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen, Benedict Wong and director Scott Derrickson. Each gave some great information about the movie, their motivations and insight into their characters. I have interviews posted for each of them.

Our central character in DOCTOR STRANGE is, of course, Doctor Stephen Strange a brilliant but self-centered and arrogant surgeon. He has virtually no equal in the operating room. A tragic accident leaves him without the use of his hands. His hands are his most important physical tools for his life, his meaning, his everything. Refusing to accept this he spends every last dime trying to find a way to fix his hands. Ultimately he learns of someone who had a miraculous recovery after sustaining horrific injuries much worse than his own. Doctor Strange goes in search of Kamar-Taj where he encounters The Ancient One. Through years of learning Doctor Strange becomes skilled in the ways of the Mystical Arts. He is presented a choice, take what he has learned and heal himself and go back to his life as a surgeon or take up the fight protecting this world from great evils.

Benedict Cumberbatch does a brilliant job in the role of Doctor Strange. In my mind he is the exact person who should play this character. He can play the arrogant doctor but also someone who can learn and grow and change. On the way out to California I watched The Imitation Game and saw incredible range in Benedict’s work. I was equally impressed seeing how he brought out Doctor Strange’s humanity in this film.

The only person in the hospital that Doctor Strange has much respect for is Doctor Christine Palmer played by Rachel McAdams. She is a highly skilled trauma surgeon, friend and lover to Doctor Strange. However, when Doctor Strange has his accident, his obsession with fixing his hands takes a toll on their relationship and she sees that she must let him go so that he can rediscover his worth on his own. It crushes her to do it but she can no longer stand by as he goes down this road to oblivion.

Rachel McAdams is a wonderful actress and she makes for an excellent balance to Doctor Strange’s personality. Her character understands the importance of helping people for the sake of helping and not for career gain. She sees beyond the gruff and arrogant exterior of Doctor Strange to the person that she hopes he can be. She is also not intimidated by his intellect and can hold her own in the operating room alongside Strange.

Interviewing Rachel was a real treat. She learned all sorts of techniques from many doctors and even practiced sutures on turkey breasts and oranges. She took inspiration from her mother who was a nurse and channeled what she saw in her mother into her character.

I first experienced the work of Chiwetel Ejiofor in the movie, Serenity, by Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron helmer, Joss Whedon. I was very impressed by his work in that movie. Unfortunately, we did not interview Chiwetel. We interviewed every other main character. Chiwetel plays Mordo, a disciple of The Ancient One. He takes Doctor Strange in to Kamar-Taj and introduces Strange to The Ancient One. He becomes one of Strange’s teachers and ultimately his friend. They train together for years in Kamar-Taj and Mordo helps in the fight against Kaecilius. Mordo is very strict on the rules of magic and the natural laws. He has little tolerance for breaking any of these and fights fiercely against Kaecilius.

As I know much about the comic books I know the road ahead for Mordo. This movie doe s a great deal of work on the backstory and motivations of Mordo’s character for future Marvel movies and I hope that we see more of him. I would have liked to have seen more on the backstory of the Kaecilius character as that would have given much more understanding to his motivations in the movie. Again, because I know the comic books and this character I know the backstory, it just should have made it into the movie somehow.

The Ancient One is the person that Doctor Strange has been searching for. He figures that The Ancient One can give him a quick fix for his destroyed hands. He, however, is wrong. The Ancient One cannot simply fix Doctor Strange’s hands, well she probably can but it is Doctor Strange, fundamentally, that needs to be reconstructed and made whole. All of his anger and arrogance needs to be stripped away if he is to truly become the best that he possibly can be. The Ancient One shows Doctor Strange that the world is much bigger than he knows when she opens his mind to the multiverse.

Tilda Swinton told us that she wanted to make sure that The Ancient One looked effortless in her fight scenes. She had to look serene as she fought and she succeeds in that quest. Making The Ancient One a Celtic woman instead of an old Tibetan man changed things up on the surface but the essence of the character remained intact. You get a real otherworldly mystical vibe from Tilda in this role, it really works for the movie.

I was most excited to meet Benedict Wong on this trip and was hopping that we would interview him. I was so excited to do so. I love his work in Marco Polo and was nearly tempted to address him as Great Khan when I asked him a question in the interview. I really like what he does as Wong. Instead of a manservant to Doctor Strange, he is more like a Drill Sergeant. He is the protector of the Kamar-Taj library and takes his role very seriously. Doctor Strange tries desperately to get Wong to crack a smile or to break his gruff exterior. There are some great comic moments between Doctor Strange and Wong.

While the character of Wong was an offensive stereotype from the 60’s in the comic books, not so much the recent comics he’s much more fleshed out and less of a servant. In the more recent Doctor Strange comics Wong is very much a stoic character but has some of the best comic lines. I think that Benedict Wong was the perfect choice to play this character, too.

Kaecilius is the main villain of Doctor Strange. He is played by Mads Mikkelsen who is well known for playing Dr. Hannibal Lecter in NBC’s Hannibal. This is something I found out when I tweeted that I’d be interviewing him. My twitter feed got overrun by his fans or rather #Fannibals. They sent in questions like crazy and so much love from around the globe. Interviewing Mads was a trip. He was so laid back and so cool. He had some amazing insight into how he approached the character of Kaecilius. He said that ultimately Kaecilius wanted to make the world a better place, however his way of going about it was quite wrong.

Kaecilius was a student of The Ancient One. When he arrived in Kamar-Taj he was a broken man who had lost his wife and child. He was searching for a way to bring them back. His anger and his brokenness could not accept that some things could not be done especially those against the natural order of the world. However, he discovered something later in is tutelage under The Ancient One that causes him to to become so disillusioned that he rebels along with his zealots.

The movie was visually amazing. For the first time in the MCU the special effects are used to show creation instead of destruction. Even when there is fighting happening, for the most part it is occurring in the mirror dimension. This allows the characters to fight anywhere but the world around them is not affected. It also allows those in the mystical arts from being seen by regular people. As you are watching this the natural world is bending, twisting and falling in on itself. There is a lot with geometric patterns i the natural world. However, in the multiverse it is a real strange trip, pun intended. The multiverse and the look of it is so influenced by the artwork of Steve Ditko the creator of Doctor Strange in the ’60s. Director Scott Derrickson said that special effects have finally caught up to the art of Steve Ditko and that you could not have done a Doctor Strange movie like this even 3 or 4 years ago.

I liked the overall plot and the action was great, character development and pacing was good. There could have been more done to expand on the motivations of Kaecilius but other than that it was nearly flawless. I enjoyed it very much and look forward to seeing it again in IMAX. This movie was made for an IMAX experience. Just shooting through the multiverse with Doctor Strange will be worth seeing this in an IMAX theater.

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Visit the official DOCTOR STRANGE website here: https://marvel.com/doctorstrange

DOCTOR STRANGE opens in theatres everywhere on November 4th!

I also wanted to direct you to a brand-new website MarvelStudiosHeroActs.com. Fans will be able to visit the site to upload their photo and choose from a selection of custom Marvel-themed overlays. They will then be able to post their photo directly to the Hero Acts gallery and to their other social channels using the hashtags #marvelstudios #heroacts.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Marvel Studios Invite Fans to Help Launch “Hero Acts” and Raise Funds for Save the Children

Marvel Studios to donate up to $1 million in recognition of new charitable initiative