Doctor Strange Review

A few days ago, I saw "Doctor Strange" with my girlfriend, brother and a dear friend of ours for my birthday. We had all been waiting for this movie to come out for a while now, and as we all sat there for almost two hours, watching Benedict Cumberbatch go from being an arrogant jerk of a man to a humbled and wholly enlightened man, one word (as cliche as it may be) ran through my brain "magic".

I could spend time doing my usual thing about talking about how each member of the cast did a spectacular job (which they all did), but I want to write about a major theme in this movie. And I will be using a quote from the film to help me talk about said theme.

The Ancient One: Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all.
Dr. Stephen Strange: Which is?
The Ancient One: It's not about you.

That bit of dialogue, right there, blew my mind. It summed up so much about the character of Doctor Strange in his time before he chooses to actively learn the mystic arts and become Earth's Sorcerer Supreme (though in the film universe attaining this title will take time it seems). Stephen Strange is an arrogant, brilliant and utterly self-absorbed neurosurgeon, a man whose medical skills have made him very wealthy and successful, but also inflated his ego to titanic proportions.

So when he wrecks his car, and his hands suffer the most severe nerve damage possible, his career is over, and his life seems to become utterly meaningless to him. All he cares about is finding some way to heal his hands so he can get back to his old life, a life of saving lives and receiving money and accolades. In many ways, humanity is so much like Stephen Strange at the film's start. People go throughout their lives, sometimes almost mechanically in nature, thinking that everything they do is important and everything in their life is more important then everyone else's and that their world, the tiny planet they live on, is the only thing that matters.

But then something comes along, something big or small, that is utterly unexpected and can throw one's lives into sheer and utter chaos. How people react to it, is the defining factor of how we move forward. People can be like Stephen Strange, and blindly cling to faint hopes that if they try every solution available, they can go back to that old life, not even aware that the rest of the world has just kept on going, and they are the one's stuck.

This is a major turning point in the movie for Stephen Strange, when he realizes that it truly ISN'T about him, and that he must accept this sad but real truth and move forward. And so he does, working hard to learn the mystic arts and take his place as one of the many sorcerer's who are tasked with protecting the world from threats of the mystical kind (this is hardly spoiler's for those who have no seen the film yet, I'm sorry but the plot is somewhat obvious from the trailers at time).

When people open their minds, hearts and souls to the fact that they are a part of something bigger, and can choose to be more active in serving that bigger purpose (for me, as a Christian, it is serving God each day through my work, no matter what I do, big or small at my job, I do it not for my glory, but for his glory).

There is a verse in the New Testament that applies to this theme, of accepting that we are not the most singular thing in the universe and that we are people who are called to be a part of something bigger; 1 Peter 4:10 reads "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in it's various forms."

To apply this verse to the theme in "Doctor Strange" that I've written about, I'll sum it up. We as people before finding the truth of God go through our lives like Stephen Strange, absorbed, and focused only on ourselves. It is only when we stop staring blindly ahead and look around and see the world and see what we can do to help make it a better place by serving God using our gifts and abilities, that we can begin to do work that will truly make a difference.

In closing, "Doctor Strange" hit the mark very highly as the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I am giving it four out of four stars for its stellar casting, a superb plot that introduced non-comic book fans to Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme, and for a special effects that will make any comic fan weep tears of joy.