Doctor Strange

Scott Derrickson's trippy Doctor Strange is weighed down a bit by the mystical hoodoo spouted by the bald and ever-fascinating Tilda Swinton, as The Ancient One, to the crassly egomaniacal surgeon DOCTOR Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is looking for life after a career-ending accident and ends up leading a battle against dark forces threatening the known universe. The picture is kept aloft by its fantastical effects that are as close to the cosmic tableaux in Marvel comics as any I've seen in this impressive (and impressively reliable) series of pictures. Magical characters move between locations, time and dimensions, bending physical space into jaw-dropping Escheresque landscapes and often cracking wise while doing so. It's a lot of fun and for hippies of a certain age might prompt an acid flashback or two. Recommended.