The CGI in ‘Doctor Strange’ is both a strength and weakness

“Doctor Strange,” the latest Marvel Comics blockbuster movie, may star the rising British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, but the real focus of the film is its computer-generated imagery. And that’s both a strength and a weakness. Ultimately, it’s a special effects extravaganza that relies too heavily on those special effects to carry the film.

Doctor Stephen Strange is an arrogant neurosurgeon whose hands are maimed in a horrific car crash. Unable to accept the prospect of never being able to operate again, he seeks a cure far and wide, eventually ending up in Nepal, face to face with a sorceress named the Ancient One.

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“You’re talking to me about healing through belief?” Strange asks.

“You’re a man looking at the world through a keyhole. You’ve spent your whole life trying to widen that keyhole … And now, on hearing that it can be widen in ways you can’t imagine, you reject the possibility,” the Ancient One tells him.

“No. I reject it because I don’t believe in fairy tales about chakras or energy or the power of belief. There is no such thing as spirit!” he exclaims.

His petulance takes a back seat after she knocks him for a loop, or more technically, his astral form out of his physical form.

After much training and study at a kind of school/monastery run by the Ancient One, Strange eventually masters the mystic arts, learning how to harness energy and shape multi-dimensional reality.

And just in time, it turns out, because the Ancient One’s international network of sorcerers is under attack by a renegade student and his cohorts. The rebels want to overthrow her and usher in evil in the form of a creature of the dark dimension called Dormammu.

This clash takes up most of the rest of the movie, with constant skirmishes and one final confrontation.

What’s fun about these battles is that they take place in worlds that defy the laws of physics. They involve time travel, astral projections, levitation cloaks, portals into alternate realities, and mirror dimensions. At times, it looks like they’re fighting inside an Escher drawing. At other times, entire city blocks seem to be recreating that great scene in the film “Inception” in which the buildings of Paris start folding in on themselves.

It’s all pretty spectacular stuff. At least it is the first two or three times it’s done. But eventually, say 10 times later, it gets wearing and even ho-hum. And the final confrontation with Dormammu is flat-out disappointing visually.

At this point you realize that beyond the special effects, there’s not much “there” there. Marvel thinks Doctor Strange represents new territory for them because it explores a realm outside their superhero norms. As one Sorcerer explains, “The Avengers protect the world from physical dangers. We safeguard it against more mystical threats.”

But “Doctor Strange” is better judged not against the typical Marvel fare (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor) but visually stunning and intellectually challenging features like “Inception” and “The Matrix,” and by those standards, it’s found wanting.