With Doctor Strange set for release on Tuesday October 25th, we were given the chance to check out a fifteen minute IMAX preview of select footage from Marvel’s fourteenth addition to the cinematic universe! Here’s Emma Withington’s report…
‘Expand your mind’
In 2013, the first 9 minutes of the film Star Trek into Darkness was offered up as an IMAX preview before screenings of The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey. What we were presented with for Doctor Strange, was vastly different to simply showing the film’s ‘prologue’. We were presented with a high adrenaline mash-up of extended scenes, interspersed with some familiar trailer footage.
Not only did we get to see the highly anticipated footage, but Doctor Strange himself made an appearance. Benedict Cumberbatch discussed his character, what we were about to experience, and quipped about his first time in the iconic cape: “(You suddenly realise) wow, yeah, I’m playing a superhero…I’m wearing a cape! And then it’s like, no, you’re wearing a cloak…It’s very surreal, like being a kid again!”
He talked about how he approached the character of Doctor Strange:”We looked at how this man fits into the 21st century world”. Conversations with Director Scott Derrickson involved focusing on the human aspects that make Doctor Strange appealing: “This is an incredibly important journey for any of us – a story about how your mind can shape your world…”
From here on out there are potential spoilers – if you wish to watch the film with an entirely clean slate, do not proceed!
The opening scenes of the footage show Doctor Strange working as a neurosurgeon with colleague, and love interest, Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams). Strange is a medical celebrity: charismatic, materialistic, and is guided by logic and western science.
We then see Strange suited, booted, and driving recklessly while communicating to his assistant at the hospital. He selects patients based on whether or not they will dent his ‘perfect record’, dismissing elderly cases, or those injured ‘stupidly’ and asks, ‘Have you got something worth my time?!’ Suddenly, destiny strikes (or maybe Karma), as an incoming x-ray distracts him from driving – Strange is involved in a spectacularly bad, hand crushing car crash.
Strange’s search for alternative treatment to restore the use of his hands leads us to his first encounter with The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) – Strange is dismissive of the teaching she offers and sarcastically comments on a diagram illustrating the Chakras of the human body, ‘yeah I’ve seen those before…in a gift shop!’
After being punched out of his body by The Ancient One, and into his ‘astral form’, Strange wonders what was in the tea, but the most extreme ingredient was ‘a little honey’. So, not LSD. The Ancient One shows Strange, ‘How much you don’t know’ and we are taken on one hell of a trip. Benedict’s quips from before the screening suddenly made sense: “I hope no one is having magic mushrooms – I feel sorry for you if you are – you might start using the popcorn as something else…”
Strange hurtles through a kaleidoscope of dimensions – from touching a butterfly in a vast, gaseous, celestial universe to incendiary worlds and reactive prisms. Strange’s fingers sprout tiny hands – which in turn sprout more – and he plummets through his own eye. It’s absolutely incredible, a real attack on the senses, vibrant and fantastical. This really assures the viewer that there is no holding back. You are getting Doctor Strange at full 60’s Steve Ditko level, and some. The Ancient One’s voice echoes across the dimensions, ‘Who will you be in this vast multiverse?’
Once he has been brought back to his plane of existence, she asks wryly, ‘Did you see that in a gift shop?’
The introduction of Wong (Benedict Wong) is a wonderful thing. Consistent throughout the showcase, the signature Marvel humour shines through and enhances the chemistry between the characters. Strange is attempting to borrow books from Wong’s library, a master of the mystic arts. When Wong tells Strange his name, he simply responds, ‘Just Wong..? Like, Adele?’ The beginning of a beautiful friendship.
We don’t see much more of Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), aside from what we have previously seen in trailers and during the battle sequence, which I will touch on again shortly. Mordo shows no sign of becoming Strange’s adversary, as his comic counterpart does. Whether this aspect of his character materialises in Doctor Strange, remains a mystery – for now they have a Stark/Rhodey-esque relationship as partners.
While footage of the villain Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) is sparing, and dialogue limited, we see parts of the sequences in which Strange and Karl Mordo confront him. An interesting side note, however, are the symbols hinting towards Dormammu – one of Doctor Strange’s most formidable, recurring foes – during Kaecilius’ scenes. It’s possible that Kaecilius, a villain not from the comics, is a means for introducing Dormammu into the world.
During the confrontation with Kaecilius there are some Inception-esque scenes, however, that is merely one aspect of something much bigger presented in Doctor Strange, which boasts some truly mind-bending sequences throughout. It hearkens back, very strongly, to Doctor Strange‘s comic book origins in truly jaw dropping and mind bending – never mind expanding! – scenes that appear to be plucked straight from the pages of his comic counterpart.
The Stan Lee cameo, as usual, is wonderful. Stan-the-man is shown reading one of those ‘gift shop’ books on a bus, as the world is inversing around him. Strange and Karl Mordo thump into the side of the bus as Stan chuckles, ‘ This is hilarious!’ Stan Lee continues to be oblivious to the world enveloping around him, as Strange and Karl Mordo continue to save the world.
If this footage is anything to go by, Doctor Strange is a must see. It truly embraces the mystical, supernatural, and off the wall elements that make the character unique. Expand your mind, blow your mind!
Emma Withington – Follow me on Twitter
Originally published October 11, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
