Sunday, January 27, 2008

U2 3D = amazing!

I visited the nearby multiplex this afternoon with some friends to take in the film U2 3D. The Springdale Showcase Cinema happens to be the only theater in Ohio showing the film during it's prerelease dates (wider release occurs in mid-February). And it's only a few minutes from home - lucky me! This is a truly amazing feat of technology. I'll have to say it started off a bit slow. And I'm not completely sold yet on 3D movie technology. Thus far it seems to have more a series of layers rather than a continuous 3D feel. But the audio and computer graphics made up for any technical shortcomings. I especially enjoyed the stage background LCD screen matrices, and the film included computer graphic representations of many of these themes layered on top of the performances - it was amazing, especially due to the simplicity of many of the "drawings". They often merged the 3D graphics with the actual onstage backgrounds. The song reporitoire was well chosen. And as I mentioned, the audio quality was excellent (except for some of Bono's speaking parts.) My favorite moment was when during a closeup on Bono they dropped out all the reverb, giving me the sense he was singing directly in front of me. As the camera shot moved back, the reverb was gradually added back in until the "normal" ambiance was present.