Having had my fill of superhero movies this year I was prepared to dislike this film, especially with its silly special effects of a city folding under itself.  I was also wary of bald Tilda Swinton, the mystical aspects of the story and lots of hand-to-hand fighting.  Imagine my surprise at seeing a character-driven story in which the mystical aspects are completely appropriate to tell the story, the fighting is kept to a minimum (and is the cause of some humor) and bald Tilda Swinton gives the best performance!

Scott Derrickson’s film is still a little too kaleidoscopic for my taste, but it largely fulfills its ambitions.  Dare I say it could even have been longer.  A couple of battles involve a fairly large scale and yet are personal, never destroying things just to destroy them and keeping the focus on the warriors.  And the biggest battle, the climactic fight in Hong Kong, is only seen in reverse motion before Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) artfully flies up into space, beyond time, to actually reason with the big bad evil dimension guy whose name I never quite caught.

A second viewing would probably clue me into some of the stuff I only half-perceived, but this viewing impressed me with sharp writing, cleverness, imagination and good performances all the way around.  And I love the fact that the superhero and the super villain actually took time away from beating the crap out of each other to talk, to try and convince the other of their folly.  The special effects involving magic were cool, especially for getting from one place to another quickly.  The only thing missing that I would have really liked to see is a Yeti.

The thing about modern superheroes is that they are meant to be entirely human, with egos, foibles, emotional baggage and terror in their hearts before they take the plunge to save humanity.  That’s fine, and Dr. Strange certainly has his share of issues.  Only this time, I actually cared about the guy, and that hasn’t happened since the first Iron Man movie.  For all of the fancy world-spinning, time-reversing special effects and plot devices, it is the human characters that drive this movie — Dr. Strange, his girlfriend Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), Modor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Wong (Benedict Wong) and so on.  The movie works because of them; I’m glad to have shared their adventure.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  15 December 2016.