Dumb Doctor Strange Moments Everybody Just Ignored

Doctor Strange is a film of wonder, adventure, action, and magic. It's also a film of really dumb nonsense. Oh, sure, we enjoyed it as much as anyone else. But like Doctor Stephen Strange himself, we've had to learn the hard way that intellect can only take you so far when it comes to understanding the mysteries of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So shut your brain off and ponder these dumb things that everyone just ignored about Doctor Strange.

During the good doctor's life and death struggle to defend the New York sanctum, he gets run through with some kind of mystical force dagger or something. He basically dies on the operating table before being shocked back to life, because that's just how bad the gaping knife wound in his chest is. And yet, as soon as the scene is over, he's totally fine for the rest of the movie, running and jumping and flying around as if he doesn't have a massive hole in his torso. Good thing superheroes are so resilient!

Speaking of that part where he got stabbed, Strange is only able to get away because, when the bad guy tries to finish him off, the Cloak of Levitation smacks the goon all over the room. It's absolutely hilarious, but it does beg one question: why didn't the cloak just stop the guy from stabbing Strange in the first place? After all, it stops several other attacks both before and after. Turns out that hole in Doctor Strange's chest? It's a plot hole.

It's a good thing Doctor Strange exists in a world where, according to the Ancient One, not everything has to make sense. Because not much does. Case in point: almost everything that happens to our hero in his journey toward enlightenment seems to be the result of random chance. For instance, his physical therapist randomly happens to be the same therapist who helped the last paralyzed sorcerer to be treated at the exact same hospital. And when Strange heads to Nepal to search for enlightenment? Mordo just happens to be standing nearby and overhears him. Or consider that Strange happens to read the forbidden spell at the exact moment that the bad guys attack. Or ... you know what, it's cool. Sure, it all seems like a string of unbelievable coincidences, but no doubt the Ancient One would chalk it up to fate.

When Doctor Strange begins his training, the Ancient One's temple is filled with sorcerers, apprentices, and masters alike, training rigorously night and day. And as we learn, the whole mystic order has just one purpose: to protect the sanctums from any and all threats. So why exactly does each sanctum only have a single dude assigned to guard them? Where are all the other wizards — doing karaoke at Wong's place? Sure, they all finally show up for about three seconds at the Hong Kong sanctum. But it might have been wise to put some of them in the New York and London sanctums to begin with so things didn't get that far out of hand. This is why they invented the phrase "you had one job."

When Mordo gives Doctor Strange their Wi-Fi password, he assures Strange that they aren't a bunch of savages. But Strange apparently didn't get the memo, because he's stuck using a Microsoft Surface 3 as his tablet of choice. This is blatant product placement, of course, but while it's not quite as egregious as Tony Stark using a cheap Chinese phone in Captain America: Civil War, it also seems pretty silly considering Doctor Strange has what appears to be a multimillion-dollar apartment and a high-end, luxury sports car. And we're supposed to believe he's not even going to spring for a Surface Pro 4 at least? Let's be real: if it wasn't for product placement, Strange would totally be a Mac guy anyway.

Finally, just how completely incompetent are the Ancient One and her disciples? They've spent centuries preparing for the arrival of the dread Dormammu, but when push comes to shove, a total rando with no experience or skill or knowledge has to swoop in and save them. When the fighting starts, Doctor Strange can barely manage to even put together a basic shield, yet he survives (miraculously becoming an expert in magic over the course of about a half hour) while all the actual masters either die, disappear off-screen like that one-handed dude (Hamir), or are otherwise completely ineffectual.

Given the controversy Marvel went through earlier about the perceived whitewashing of the supporting characters, it almost comes off as a bit paternalistic to have the educated Western man save all the mystic foreigners from their own incompetence. But it's actually a lot more basic than that: the fact that this dude that has no idea what he's doing ends up being the hero of the story isn't politically incorrect. It's just kinda dumb.