Throughout the past few years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has expanded, allowing more and more characters from the original comics to get their own movies. A lot of Marvel fans have been anticipating the newest addition to the universe, “Doctor Strange.” Doctor Strange has similarities with superheroes such as Tony Stark’s Iron Man, sharing Stark’s arrogant personality and stunning smarts, but differs in his ability to conjure actual magic.

Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is an arrogant, cocky, self-centered neurosurgeon, and these traits get him into an awful car accident that severely damages the nerves in his hands. After desperately searching for someone to fix his hands and failing, Strange travels to Kathmandu, Nepal, searching for the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who can fix his hands.

Strange ends up finding the Ancient One and is taught the mystic arts. Strange, who at the beginning doubted the mystic arts existed, finds himself making multiple trips to the library and reading as many books that he can get his hands on. Strange’s personality sometimes gets him in trouble, but as the film goes on he is able to take a step back and be able to look past what he can see.

Throughout the film, special effects are used to show the buildings folding into themselves to create a warped version of major cities- the three major cities used being Hong Kong, London, and New York. The effects distorted the scenes, twisting the buildings, making different parts of the building replace other parts to create different shapes. It is obvious that a bunch of time and money was spent on this movie’s special effects, and it really paid off in the end.

The film, despite being fantasy/science fiction, certainly had funny moments. The Ancient One’s place in Kathmandu was kind of…well, ancient, so the movie used modern references to get a chuckle out of the audience. The Stan Lee cameo, like always, was funny, though his appearance in this movie didn’t get as much of a laugh out of the audience as some of his past cameos have gotten. The funny moments weren’t as prominent as say, “Guardians of the Galaxy,” but they gave comic relief to try and lighten up the overall darker mood.

Overall, “Doctor Strange” was a good movie. The plot was decent, even Strange’s “lover,” Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), seemed out of place. Palmer seemed to just show up in some scenes, an unnecessary love interest who really didn’t serve a purpose to the plot. As with the other Marvel movies, if you wait a little bit after the movie ends, you see a special scene that gives way to a new movie. I’d definitely recommend grabbing a ticket and seeing this movie in theaters; it’s a Marvel movie worth watching.