Makeup: Jessica Brooks, Nicola Buck, Susan Howard e Malwina Suwinska; Björn Rehbein (direttore dipartimento di New York)
Casting: Sarah Finn e Reg Poerscout-Edgerton
Scheda film aggiornata al:
23 Novembre 2016
Sinossi:
Il film Marvel Doctor Strange racconta la storia del neurochirurgo di fama mondiale Stephen Strange, la cui vita cambia per sempre dopo che un terribile incidente automobilistico lo priva dell’uso delle mani. Quando la medicina tradizionale si dimostra incapace di guarirlo, Strange è costretto cercare una cura in un luogo inaspettato: una misteriosa enclave nota come Kamar-Taj. Scoprirà presto che non si tratta soltanto di un luogo di guarigione, ma della prima linea di una battaglia contro invisibili forze oscure decise a distruggere la nostra realtà . Presto, Strange imparerà a padroneggiare la magia e sarà costretto a scegliere se fare ritorno alla sua vita agiata o abbandonare tutto per difendere il mondo e diventare il più potente stregone vivente.
SHORT SYNOPSIS:
After his career is destroyed, a brilliant but arrogant surgeon gets a new lease on life when a sorcerer takes him under his wing and trains him to defend the world against evil.
Commento critico (a cura di FRANCESCO ADAMI)
Quattordicesimo film Marvel, secondo film della Terza Fase dell'Universo Marvel, Doctor Strange è un lungometraggio fantasy d'azione diretto da Scott Derrikson, entro il quale si entra per esplorare la sfera del magico e del soprannaturale. Protagonista principale è il Dottor Stephen Vincent Strange, interpretato da Benedict
Cumberbatch, personaggio nato dalla penna di Steve Ditko che fa la sua prima apparizione nell'universo fumettistico nel luglio del 1963. Strange è un neurochirurgo la cui carriera viene deviata da un incidente d'auto, che gli causa la perdita dell'uso delle mani: un destino fatale, che lo porta verso un cambiamento volto alla scoperta di nuove prospettive. La medicina, materia padroneggiata da Strange, non gli è di aiuto per curare i suoi arti e ritornare alla normale vita, così si vede costretto a cercare delle cure alternative presso un particolare monastero dell'India, noto con il nome di Kamar-Taj (pronunciato camartage). E' da qui che ha inizio
Nei precedenti film dei supereroi Marvel, si è venuti a conoscenza dell'esistenza delle
sei gemme dell'infinito: la Gemma dello Spazio, che consente i viaggi spaziali tra una dimensione e l'altra, è apparsa sotto forma di Tesseract nel primo film di Captain America proseguendo per il film degli Avengers; la Gemma della Realtà , l'Aether, presente in Thor: The Dark Word, che permette di trasformare la materia in materia oscura; la Gemma del Potere, costituita dall'Orb, presente nel film I Guardiani della Galassia; la Gemma della Mente, collocata all'interno dello scettro di Loki e poi fusa nella testa del personaggio di Visione apparso in Avengers: The Age of Ultron. Le ultime due sono la Gemma dell'Anima e la Gemma del Tempo. in questo secondo film della terza fase
Marvel viene presentata la Gemma del Tempo, inserita e costituita dall'Occhio di Agamotto, un ciondolo di forma sferica, indossato da Strange e controllato in modo superbo per affrontare i suoi nemici e mutare le sorti di eventi pericolosi al
limite
dell'apocalisse globale.
Dal punto di vista interpretativo Benedict Cumberbatch (Stephen Strange / Dottor Strange), Rachel McAdams (la dottoressa Christine Palmer), Tilda Swinton (l'Antico), Michael Stuhlbarg (Nicodemus West) e Mads Mikkelsen (Kaecilius) danno il meglio di loro stessi per offrire un volto valido a personaggi che appartengono al mondo dei comics, rendendo quasi reale il fantastico universo Marvel. A partire da questo film, nei titoli di testa non si troverà più il classico logo animato della Marvel, con i fumetti che scorrono, bensì un nuovo logo della Marvel Studios, laddove i fumetti si sposano con numerose sequenze tratte dai film delle varie fasi Marvel. Dal punto di vista tecnico, il film presenta una ricca gamma di formati, dal digitale (Arri Alexa), all'IMAX (Arri Alexa 65) fino alla pellicola Arriflex 235. Anche le location sono
diversificate ed internazionali, tra cui Londra, New York, Hong Kong, Kathmandu e Nepal. Un aspetto creativo ma nello
“È una storia ambientata in un mondo credibile, ricca di emozioni intense e di umorismo. Ma è anche un film pieno di avventure fantastiche e momenti completamente pazzeschi, che dimostrano che la Marvel è in continuo miglioramento. L’importanza delle ambientazioni, del contesto e dell’azione che ha luogo all’interno di questi contesti non è mai stata così elevata. Sarà una straordinaria avventura cinematograficaâ€.
Secondo commento critico (a cura di PETER DEBRUGE, www.variety.com)
In the increasingly cookie-cutter realm of Marvel comic-book movies, a little strange goes a long way.
Although Marvel Studios’ “Doctor Strange†offers very few insights into the childhood of its main character, applying what we know about bullying on American schoolyards, it’s safe to assume it wasn’t easy growing up with a name like Stephen Strange. Perhaps that explains the complex that has driven Strange (that rare superhero who keeps his name after acquiring his incredible new powers) to become such an arrogant New York neurosurgeon, flaunting his skills at work and his Lamborghini Huracán outside the office.
Cut from the same mold as playboys Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Bruce Wayne (Batman), Strange easily might have become world’s most insufferable superhero. But instead, it’s the very fact of this deeply insecure and wildly overcompensating character’s determination to prove himself — coupled with the setback by which texting while driving
cripples his hands and very nearly derails him of that ambition — that makes “Doctor Strange†Marvel’s most satisfying entry since “Spider-Man 2,†and a throwback to M. Night Shyamalan’s soul-searching identity-crisis epic “Unbreakable,†which remains the gold standard for thinking people’s superhero movies.
Yes, this new project shares the same look, feel, and fancy corporate sheen as the rest of Marvel’s rapidly expanding Avengers portfolio, but it also boasts an underlying originality and freshness missing from the increasingly cookie-cutter comic-book realm of late. From this second-tier side character, the studio has created a thrilling existential dilemma in which its flawed hero’s personal search for purpose dovetails beautifully with forays into the occult New Age realm of magic and sorcery where Doctor Strange ultimately finds his calling.
While producer Kevin Feige deserves credit for bringing a master plan to Marvel’s big-screen slate, recruiting A-list talent on both sides of the camera and
holding them to aesthetic standards that unify the various projects, those parameters are starting to feel every bit as restrictive as real-world physics can be to less-than-super movies. Like the original pulp comics, which were printed with a standard four-color process that permitted a very limited palette, Marvel movies are all starting to look and sound the same, boasting bright primary colors, magic-hour lighting, and bombastic orchestral scores.
Generally speaking, there’s less room for directors to experiment when introducing new heroes, and yet Doctor Strange’s tangential standing within the Marvel canon allows a welcome degree of freedom, while the supernatural dimension of his gifts permits filmmaker Scott Derrickson to bend the rules a bit more than his peers — not enough, some would argue. Like “Spider-Man†director Sam Raimi, Derrickson hails from the world of schlock horror, where he made such seat-jumpers as “The Exorcism of Emily Rose†and “Sinister,†and
here, he transitions smoothly to a far bigger canvas (so big that Imax audiences will benefit from more than an hour of footage captured on the company’s large-format digital cameras).
The key is an in-on-the-joke script, which Derrickson co-wrote with Jon Spaihts and C. Robert Cargill, that ingeniously navigates major plot potholes even as it saddles its actors with ludicrous dialogue. But what actors! As Doctor Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch sheds his British accent but not the attitude, which both attracts and repulses fellow doctor Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams, the most competent — and human — of Marvel’s window-dressing girlfriends).
After the accident, Strange seeks advice from a man named Pangborn (Benjamin Bratt), who broke his back, but somehow learned to heal himself. Though skeptical at first, after meeting the former paraplegic on a basketball court, Strange takes his advice and heads east to Kathmandu, where he meets the Jedi-like Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor)
and his master, the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). Mordo is a fascinating character whose motives are every bit as complex as Strange’s. Those who wish there were more of him in the film would be advised to stick around through both post-credits bonus scenes.
Meanwhile, much has already been written about the casting of the white-skinned Swinton in a role originally conceived as an old Asian man (as if the world needs yet another Mister Miyagi/Pai Mei stereotype), when the only real disappointment there is that the practically extraterrestrial star wasn’t asked to play the title role — because who is stranger? Swinton already walks this earth in some sort of enlightened state, and it’s no far leap to accept her as an ageless oracle with the power to bend matter and slow time. The latter trick, which turncoat ex-disciple Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) uses for more nefarious purposes, lends the film
a staggering visual effects innovation, in which the building-bending seen in Christopher Nolan’s “Inception†is taken to an extreme that would blow even M.C. Escher’s mind.
Whereas we can generally intuit the “rules†that govern most superheroes and their powers, Doctor Strange’s New Age training puts us in a vulnerable place where seemingly anything can happen: One near-death ER sequence manages to be tense, hilarious, and exhilarating at the same time, while another on a hospital balcony is among Marvel’s most poignant. To counter whatever disorder might result, the film is unusually heavy on exposition, and yet Derrickson understands that’s it’s far more satisfying to show than to explain, impressing with one psychedelic sequence after another. Burn a bit of incense or something stronger before watching, and this already hyper-vivid 3D experience is liable to carry you away entirely, especially when Kaecilius proceeds to fold first staircases and later the streets
of New York into an elaborate moving kaleidoscope, in which Doctor Strange proceeds to jump, slip, and slide like a pawn in an elaborate, multi-dimensional chess game.
While it’s frustrating that each of these movies must build to a generic showdown between our superhero and some all-powerful, earth-endangering supervillain, “Doctor Strange†takes that tedious inevitability and spins it off into an alternate Dark Dimension, where wit (both humor and intellect) prevails. That’s an especially apt solution for this particular hero, since he’s been robbed of physical strength: The car crash left Doctor Strange practically handicapped, forcing him to learn tricks and spells to compensate for his lost dexterity. Since his enemies are martial arts experts with post-“Matrix†abilities, he has no choice but to get creative, conjuring shields and teleportation portals from plain air. At one point, facing off against Kaecilius and his henchmen, Strange stumbles across the Cloak of Levitation,
a magical cape that proactively comes to his defense, absorbing blows while giving him hints on how to escape the situation.
Such scenes may be good for spectacle, but Doctor Strange’s most fascinating battle is within himself, as he fights first to regain the use of his hands and later to overcome everything he has learned — not only about the laws of physics, but also the social conditioning that taught this workaholic that his self-worth was tied to a job he can no longer perform. The character is literally fighting for his life in this film, and Cumberbatch captures both his humbling and the subsequent recovery of confidence. Here is a man who cockily swore off being an emergency room surgeon because he wasn’t interested in saving one life at a time, only to be rendered useless by his injuries. So, while we might yawn at yet another threat to
all mankind, “Doctor Strange†has been presented in such a way that this higher calling restores his ability to help the world entire. We understand that this calling matters to him, even if his motives remain a mystery.
Bibliografia:
Nota: Si ringraziano The Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures e Giulia Arbace (Ufficio stampa)