We are back in the bizarre rococo world – or actually now worlds – of Doctor Strange, Marvel’s mindbending surgeon-turned-superhero who is played with sonorous conviction by Benedict Cumberbatch. He strides unselfconsciously around in a velveteen outfit accessorised with a pointy cloak, jet-black goatee and low hairline of pin-sharp definition – similar to the late James Lipton, presenter of TV’s Inside the Actors Studio. Sam Raimi takes over directing duties from the first film’s Scott Derrickson and brings to it essentially the same lite-scary/action aesthetic.
As ever, there is a pert tai chi discipline to the little circular sparkly shapes and mystical cosmic portholes that Dr Strange creates with swivelling hand-movements, and he flies through the air in the accepted style, not facing down flat with one fist out like Superman, but upright, right leg elegantly bent at the knee, arms extended backwards. Now Strange has to get his formidable head around the multiverse, a universe of infinite alternative possibilities – and this idea, which other movies have treated with tiresome stoner-seriousness, is handled with cheerful humour and boisterously surreal melodrama.
