Plot Summary – In an accident, Stephen Strange, a famous neurosurgeon, loses the ability to use his hands. He goes to visit the mysterious Ancient One to heal himself and becomes a great sorcerer under her tutelage.

★★★★ 

Rewatched on 04 May 2021

As I rewatch the MCU films with the intention to review them I find myself dropping my facade of cynicism and re-discovering these films with the childlike wonder I marvelled (hehe) at them with upon first watching them in theatres. That was a really pretentious way of saying, I like this a lot and I miss being a kid. Doctor Strange is such a fun and wholesome movie. I remember my dad had to watch this twice back to back, once with his colleagues and one with my family and I remember him saying “If I could watch that twice in theatres, without getting bored then it must be an entertaining movie” and that rings true even today. Whatever you may think of it artistically, it is so so fun and enjoyable. The jokes still land perfectly for me and each scene bring this ingenuity to it while perfectly adhering to the formula. This was the start of Phase Three but it still brought the wonder of Phase One back and I genuinely had such a good time rewatching this. The visuals and CGI are STUNNING and Benedict Cumberbatch is so so charismatic. I still feel that while Mads Mikkelsen is a wonderful actor, his talents were underutilized in this half-baked, ‘pure evil villain in Kaecilius. Dormammu on the other hand was so fun and I genuinely had a great time in the “Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain” scene. I’m glad that this was ‘blue-light in the sky’ but different. I genuinely enjoyed Doctor Strange so much but I felt that the villain and a few of the side characters could have been given more depth and better motivations.