A Dr Strange movie is one of those ideas that mid 90s Dan, or even mid 00s Dan would have scoffed at. This is a character who hadn't had a solo comic series since 1996 (aside from the one that started last year, once the movie was already well into production), so even the comic writers didn't have enough of a solo story for him. But this is the world we're living in now, where Dr Strange gets his own movie. Why not? Well, I'll get onto that, but for now, let's talk the trailer.
What we learn from the trailer is that Dr Stephen Strange (yep, not a title, that's his actual name) gets into what looks to be a car accident and is very badly knocked about. We see pins and casts on his arms that make it all look very nasty. Rather than go to regular doctors, he seeks help from elsewhere. Enter The Ancient One, played here by a bald Tilda Swinton. It's unclear how they find each other, as Strange states in the trailer that he's not exactly a believer in belief, but ultimately she shows him enough wacky stuff that he begs her to teach him. And teach him she shall. There are also brief looks at Mads Mikkelsen looking scary and Chiwetel Ejiofor (playing Baron Mordo) looking badass. The Far East sections have a strong Batman Begins vibe about them, which I like, because anything that reminds me of Batman Begins is a good thing. The comic book stories of Dr Strange (originally in an anthology comic called Strange Tales, although not named after our Steve), originally started in the 60s, had a mad, psychedelic vibe to it, with Spiderman co-creator Steve Ditko going nuts with crazy imagery and hellish mindscapes, and it seems as though the filmmakers are taking a lot of inspiration from these comics, with some Inception-style perversions of physics taking place.
Everything I see, I like, even Benedict Cumberbatch's deep, growly, House MD-esque American accent. The imagery is good, the setup is sparse but says enough, and the actors involved are all capable of wonderful things. I'm hoping the resulting film will be a superhero film told through a very trippy, metaphysical lens, tying into Marvel's tradition of giving a slightly different version of the tried and tested superhero film in each of its cinematic outings. It'll be very interesting to see how they handle magic, because this is a universe that so far has been staunchly 'real', with powers all coming from science, even if the technology is so far advanced that it appears to us to be magic. One of the big issues with Dr Strange in the comics, and one of the things that has made stories with him at the centre difficult to tell, is the unquantifiable nature of magic. It's difficult to convincingly put a character in perilous situations when they could feasibly come up with some kind of spell or rune or mystical sword that can solve the problem instantly.
However, none of my issues are with the trailer, which keeps it's storytelling brief, it's imagery exotic, and doesn't seem to have too much footage (if any) from the latter part of the movie. I'm sure that before the November release date we'll have at least one more, fuller trailer, but I'm hopeful I can remain strong to go into the cinema with only the information I have at this moment to guide me. Which means I have to say...