skjam

Doctor Strange (2007) dir. Patrick Archibald

The world you see is not all there is. Monsters roam the streets of New York, smashing and killing their way to a point called the Sanctum. Opposing them are the disciples of the Ancient One, wizards and sorcerers who conceal their activities from the world with simple spells. There are those, however, who have the gift of seeing magic and the hidden truths of the world. One of them, only beginning to realize it, is Doctor Stephen Strange.

Dr. Strange is one of the world's most gifted neurosurgeons, and he knows it. But since the death of his younger sister, Stephen has grown cold-hearted, only concerned with earning fame and money by treating difficult cases. It's not that he doesn't want to heal people, he just feels that there are doctors who are better suited to handling charity cases and ordinary ills, and he shouldn't be bothered. The glimpses he's seen of things that should not be he shrugs off as daydreams caused by overwork.

Under pressure from the hospital administrator, Stephen finally goes to consult with a colleague working in the coma ward. She's got what looks like an epidemic of kids in comas. Stephen doesn't do pediatrics, but this is interesting based on what's happening in their brains. When he touches one of the children, he shares her nightmare of a burning face, one that all the children had before they went comatose. Shaken, he refuses to help.

Still disturbed by his recent visions, Dr. Strange drives recklessly, and when he sees what appear to be ghostly children in the road, he swerves to miss them and winds up crashing. Stephen lives, but his hands are smashed, and there is subtle nerve damage. He refuses to consider not being a brain surgeon, and rapidly spirals into a cycle of seeking out ever more unlikely cures and draining his funds. At last he is broke and homeless, still unable to properly use his hands. At this point, Stephen is contacted by a man named Wong, who tells him that "healing" is available in Tibet.

After a perilous journey, Dr. Strange arrives at the monastery of the Ancient One to begin rethinking his life, not yet realizing that the "healing" spoken of was not merely his hands. Meanwhile, the disciples of the Ancient One continue to go out to fight the monsters of Dormammu, but fewer of them return each time. Field leader Mordo believes that the Ancient One's too conservative about tactics and that this should be treated with a warrior (himself) in charge. He too has misunderstood the Ancient One's intentions.

This Lionsgate animated movie has strong similarities to the later Marvel live action film about Doctor Strange. When Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created the character in the early 1960s. the initial origin story was a handful of pages that could have easily fitted into a half hour program. So quite a bit of detail created for later stories is added to fill out a more substantial run time. And since Stephen doesn't come into his powers until well into the story, a number of fight scenes involving mostly interchangeable other disciples are added to keep interest up.

It's easy to empathize a bit with Mordo. The Ancient One has known all along that Mordo will turn against him to work for Dormammu the moment he learns he's not going to be the Sorcerer Supreme, so has allowed his disciple to think he's in the running for that position for years while the Ancient One waited for his true successor (Strange) to come along. I'd be ticked too if I had worked my butt off for my entire adult life on a vague promise of promotion only to be discarded for some new guy who just started training a few months ago. On the other hand, Mordo's rotten attitude makes it clear to everyone around him that he's not a good leader, spiritual or otherwise. The far more experienced Wong is much more philosophical about the fact that he's topped out in his sorcerous occupation.

The art is okay, but I'd have liked more homage to Ditko's trippy visuals that made the early Dr. Strange comics so appealing. The voice acting is okay, but uninspired. Stephen's female colleague is especially feeling phoned in. The disposable disciples get a bit more oomph, but little to do with it as the story doesn't bother giving them personalities, just nice visual cues.

And Dr Strange is given an extra power he doesn't have in the comics to make it plausible that he and he alone can stand against the dread Dormammu.

It's an okay movie, but it's easy to see why there wasn't a direct sequel or a rush of interest in the character.