What is reality?

This question may be hard to answer if you are viewing the film “Doctor Strange” for the first time.

A Marvel Studios movie that takes place in the same universe as “The Avengers,” “Doctor Strange” tests the mind’s limits.  Marvel introduces audiences to the idea that the mind can do more than it is trained to do and it can be used to perform magic.

Doctor Strange is a sorcerer who harnesses this magic.  At first, Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is an arrogant neurosurgeon who gets hurt in an accident and cannot work.  He digs into treatments and finds a man who had been paralyzed but was able to walk again.  The man tells Strange to go to Kathmandu, Nepal where he learned to open his spirit.

This is where the familiar of New York is traded for a much more taboo Far East.  Strange finds himself at the doorstep of a mysterious temple called Kamar-Taj , where a group of sorcerers are led by the immortal Ancient One(Tilda Swinton).  She sends him into a surreal view of different dimensions and he stays to train with them.

An enemy named Kaecilius, who was a student of the Ancient One, shows up and wants Earth to be a part of the Dark Dimension.  The ruler of the Dark Dimension, Dormammu, promises those who join him eternal life, but it is not what it seems.

The hero fights the bad guy and the parallels between most marvel movies continue from there.  This is the only downside of the movie, predictability.

With that being said, the action sequences are not like those of the other Marvel films.  The CGI is used heavily and distorts images that make the film a mind-bending maze of picture. Watching this movie in IMAX 3D is absolutely worth the money if you truly want a taste of Marvel’s inventive CGI.

The humor is on the same scale as the picture.  It is perfectly placed in moments where you would never expect it to work.

“Doctor Strange” isn’t quite the strangest movie released to date, but it is one of the most telling when it comes to Marvel’s future as a movie studio.