Still, this big screen adaptation by director Scott Derrickson (who co-wrote the script with John Spaights and C. Robert Cargill) is so consistently entertaining, and demonstrates such thorough mastery of pacing, special effects and tone, that it very nearly drowns objections beneath waves of deadpan humor and glorious psychedelic imagery. It helps that Derrickson takes the source material seriously but not too seriously. There's none of the pouty ponderousness that afflicts many live-action superhero films. For every miracle, there's a joke, often a marvelously dry one, as when the hero, maimed surgeon turned sorcerer Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) petulantly demands that his nemesis, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), not address him as "Mister Doctor." "It's...Strange," he says, wincing slightly at his own pretentiousness. Kaecilius ponders that second word and then says, "Maybe. Who am I to judge?"



The movie never forgets to be clever as well as exciting; you can almost envision the filmmakers combing every page of the script and asking, "This spot here, it's only three seconds long or so, but is there some way we can work a gag into it, or some sort of grace note that people won't expect?" The result is a nearly Spielbergian series of cinematic magic tricks that invite applause not because they're colorful and immense (though most of them are) but because they're presented in a self-deprecating way—the cinematic equivalent of an illusionist sawing his lovely assistant in half, putting her back together, then calling it a trial separation. Strange's cape, the most charismatic inorganic object since the magic carpet in Disney's "Aladdin," dotes on him the way Alfred doted on Bruce Wayne, and shows equally little inclination to indulge the master's vanity and self-seriousness. At the end, Strange celebrates his victory over the forces of evil by creasing the tips of the cape's collar straight up, and one of the lapel points brushes his face like a kitten demanding to be petted. The moment is a metaphor for Derrick's filmmaking personality, which cuts against the modern superhero film's tendency toward bombast. Strange's out-of-body fight with an enemy's spirit slams both of them into a snack machine, releasing an extra snack mere moments after Strange's old colleague (Michael Stuhlbarg) has retrieved the one he just paid for. Of course he goes back and reaches through the slot to retrieve it. Wouldn't you?

I don't want to oversell this movie. The first half-hour is mercifully brief—dig how we never see the event Strange is driving towards; the movie tosses his car off a bridge the first chance it gets. But the brevity has creative drawbacks. Cumberbatch uses his flat face and pained squint to make us feel the psychic weight of the loss Strange suffers after his surgeon's hands are crushed—he's physically convincing even when his American accent falters—and Derrickson keeps the character's gnarled, puffy hands in frame whenever possible, to remind us of the suffering that Strange managed by redirecting his perfectionism and ambition elsewhere. The arc of Strange's rehabilitation illustrates the Ancient One's admonition that you can never really beat your demons, only learn to live above their level. But this aspect of the movie is still more sketched-in than truly developed. Strange's affection for and dependence upon his ex-girlfriend, surgeon Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), is undercooked as well—though to be fair, as soon as Strange goes East and becomes a different person who occasionally inhabits different planes, they don't have much to talk about anymore. When Strange sees her again, he literally drops into her life, gushing blood this time, and the remainder of their reunion plays out like something out of a ghost story.

