{"id":4831,"date":"2016-12-02T22:54:05","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T22:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/?p=4831"},"modified":"2020-07-26T14:09:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T14:09:33","slug":"earth-wizards-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2016\/12\/02\/earth-wizards-now\/","title":{"rendered":"“So Earth has wizards now.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, well, so it does. But all the same, when the line came up in a mid-credits scene, I snorted.<\/p>\n

After the madness of the weekend and Tuesday and my naughty eye<\/a> and everything, I did (yesterday evening) something I don\u2019t do all that often: I said to Peter,\u00a0\u201cI need a day out.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 So we prepared to have one.<\/p>\n

And looking at the local cinema schedules, I discovered that yesterday was the last day that I was going to be able to see DOCTOR STRANGE \u2013 as the Christmas releases here have pushed it out of all but the very biggest multiplexes up near Dublin: and even there, who knows how much longer it might last? And I declined to miss out on a chance at a big-screen viewing for an old friend whose adventures I\u2019ve been following, on and off, since the early 1960s. (And a very odd and mixed history Stephen Strange\u2019s has been. He started out as a filler<\/a> and went in all kinds of, well, strange <\/i>directions<\/a> after that, many of which I loved.) So: to the movies!<\/p>\n

And off we went to our neighbor town, Newbridge, Co Kildare, and had lunch: and then we headed for the multiplex in the Whitewater shopping center. It was, as it happens, the very last showing of the film.<\/p>\n

Except for us, the cinema was empty. This was hilarious and delightful, as we got to treat the whole place like our living room. P. even said,\u00a0\u201cHere, let\u2019s spread out like we do on the plane, with a seat between us so we have somewhere to put the popcorn and the drinks.\u201d And I said,\u00a0\u201cBut what if I want to grab you if I get scared?\u201d and he sort of rolled his eyes and said\u00a0\u201cYou haven\u2019t done that since ALIENS in Philly \u2013 \u201d Which is true enough. We clutched each other all through the guts of that movie and then staggered into the bar at The Commissary across the road, and the barman took one look at us and said,\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019ve been to see that movie<\/i>, haven\u2019t you?\u201d No arguing with that: we were wrecked after that flick.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t expect anything of the kind, obviously. Anybody who\u2019s been online and breathing between now and October (and cared to know) has easily known the guts of what happens in this movie. But spoilers fortunately don\u2019t bother me. If learning about some one surprise in advance could completely ruin my appreciation of a piece of art, I\u2019d have revealed myself to be a bit of a delicate flower and I don\u2019t know that I\u2019d have much time for myself.<\/p>\n

So anyway. Visually: it\u2019s a delightful piece of work. Ditko\u2019s original vision of fragments of what would eventually become part of the Multiverse was honored again and again, to my intense pleasure. (Disclosure: I have been a Doctor Strange fan since the 1960s.) Just the look and feel of the thing makes this by far the trippiest movie in the MCU so far. The Inceptionesque folding-city bits that made the trailers are some of the least <\/i>impressive stuff. It\u2019s a pity there won\u2019t be an opportunity for me to see this again in 3D, as parts of it would really benefit.<\/p>\n

In terms of the script: Of course I\u2019d have written it differently, but to the best of my recollection they didn\u2019t hire me. \ud83d\ude42 What I saw wasn\u2019t at all bad. In terms of structure it worked for me, by and large; and in terms of slotting the POV and issues of the Strange-verse into the larger MCU, it did very well. It was also repeatedly funny, and not in simple ways like\u00a0\u201cthe wi-fi password. We\u2019re not savages.\u201d It was also really satisfying in the sense of having an ending that involved not merely Blowing Shit Up (though inevitably we got some of that), but of Outsmarting The Big Bad. Always a pleasure for me, and one I\u2019ve used on occasion. (You Young Wizards<\/a> fans who\u2019ve noticed this as being thematically similar to something that Darryl McAllister does to a fragment of the Lone Power in A Wizard Alone \u2013 <\/i><\/a>well, yes, it is. But this is a moderately familiar trope in both fantasy and SF, and way better writers than I have used it over the years.)<\/p>\n

Also, as a connoisseur of such things: I really liked the way they handled the various worldgating effects. Very sharp.<\/p>\n

A couple of issues that jumped out for me while watching:<\/p>\n

(a) Mads Mikkelsen did a better-than-competent job as Kaecilius, but what really got my attention was how much the makeup they\u2019d put on him was bothering his eyes. I felt for him. He\u2019s obviously a trouper and a consummate professional, but GOD he often looked like he was in pain that had nothing to do with characterization.<\/p>\n

(b) Rachel McAdams had such a thankless row to hoe in playing Strange\u2019s past-sometimes-lover, sort of a living continuity bridge between past-arrogant-surgeon and present-Sorceror-Supreme-in-training. She gave the part more and better than it deserved.<\/p>\n

And as for Cumberbatch: he\u2019s a good match for the canonical look of the character, right out of the box. That he should be able to get to grips with Strange\u2019s character in his normal manner (and of course he has a manner: no news for those who\u2019ve seen him work more than a few times) is a good thing. God knows enough actors would have taken this job, if offered it, whether they thought they could pull it off or not. He did, though, and he did, to this <\/i>Strange fan\u2019s tastes anyway.<\/p>\n

(The one thing I would tease about, slightly, is his New York accent, which \u2013 almost certainly due to the vicissitudes of scenes being shot out of cutting order \u2013 kind of gets better and worse and BETTER and HILARIOUSLY worse. In one scene he sounds so over-the-top New York Nasal that I was itching to get him some antihistamines. In other scenes he had at least one Manhattan native completely convinced, and oblivious that he might ever have had any other accent.)<\/p>\n

\u2026So we\u2019ll see where it all goes from here. The mid-credits sequence apparently suggests some appearance for Strange in THOR: RAGNAROK (and Thor is seen holding a scrap of paper with the Sanctum Sanctorum\u2019s immemorial Bleecker Street address on it in recent shooting). There\u2019s some resonance to this in that Dr. Strange and Thor have often enough run into one another and worked together<\/a> in the comics continuity. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how the themes introduced here get developed further in other parts of the MCU, and where (and how) Stephen Strange turns up next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, well, so it does. But all the same, when the line came up in a mid-credits scene, I snorted. 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