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March 10, 2018

4DX Review – A Wrinkle in Time

This is a *mostly* spoiler-free review of A Wrinkle in Time in 4DX format. This isn’t designed to a be a review of the movie as much is it’s a review of the 4DX experience for this movie.

A Wrinkle in Time is Disney’s latest big-budget fantasy film. With beautiful visuals and a wholesome good versus evil storyline, the movie will surely be in regular rotation on television, but these visuals are best seen on the big screen.

The movie opens with a cloud filled flying scene where the fans are used, but the smoke that could’ve sold the scene was missing. This seemed to be a theme throughout the film. The wind, water, and motion seats were used perfectly, but many of the other effects felt like afterthoughts if thought of at all.

The rumble effect in the seats was used with the bass of the music similar to how Black Panther did, but unlike Black Panther here the score just didn’t have enough bass to warrant such an effect. By far the best use of an effect was the motion seats. Unlike many action films here the seats weren’t rough and didn’t really move with the motion on the screen, instead, here they were used to enhance the emotional draw of the story. In more sensitive scenes the seats would tilt inward, drawing you into the scene.

Similar to Tomorrowland, another sci-fi based big-budget Disney film, A Wrinkle in Time has many scenes with wide vistas of fields. The fans in the theater made these scenes even more convincing. The smoke effects were used but not nearly enough as they could’ve been. The leg ticklers were only used a few times, but where used they were timed just right for the scene. Big storm scenes and a volcano like a scene meant the strobe lights got well used, almost to an annoyance but with so few other effects being used it feels wrong complaining about an effect being used too often.

Despite this being a sci-fi film, the genre that usually allows 4DX to shine, here the effects just weren’t enough to put this film in the upper echelon of 4DX films. It falls in the middle, not in the lower category of films where the effects distract from the viewing experience, such as with Kong, but the lack of variety in the effects mixed with the generic use of what effects, where used, make A Wrinkle in Time a less than memorable 4DX experience.

The visuals are the best part so it might be best to skip the 4DX and instead just take in this film on the big screen like IMAX.

-Review Summary-

Use of 4DX Effects- 2 out of 4
Movie Overall- 3 out of 4

Other 4DX Reviews

Black Panther
Maze Runner: The Death Cure
Coco
Interview with June Hyuk Yu- Sr. Manager, Brand Marketing Team at CJ4Dplex

January 29, 2018

4DX Review – Maze Runner: The Death Cure

This is a *mostly* spoiler-free review of Maze Runner: The Death Cure in 4DX format. This isn’t designed to a be a review of the movie as much is it’s a review of the 4DX experience for this movie.

Maze Runner: The Death Cure is the action-packed finale to the post-apocalyptic film franchise based on the young adult book series. 4DX shines best in science fiction films like Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner, but Maze Runner seems to keep 4DX on a short leash, causing the film to shine but not the in-theater experience.

The opening sequence showed promise. The strobe lights used to accentuate the title reveal were a unique use of the effect but one that worked well. The strobe lights were used in other unique ways a few other times during the film.

With the film set in the desert and abandoned locales, it’s no surprise the fans were used for large amounts of the film. Numerous fight scenes used the air cannons, but their use in nearly every fight scene seemed to lessen the impact of their use. The same with the rumble effects in the seat. Of course, the seat themselves were strong in their use throughout the film. With everything from a bus to a train to dune buggies featured in the film, this is a great movie for the motion seats.

Without giving too much away, there was one scene where a bit of a surprise happens on screen. It was paired perfectly with the leg ticklers. Like the strobe lights at the beginning of the film, the use of the leg ticklers in this scene isn’t the typical use of this effect but was more than successful in its use here. One or two quick splashes of water did little more than remind viewers that the effect existed.

That, unfortunately, covers almost every single effect used in the nearly two-and-half-hour long movie. I noticed no scents, no snoap, no rain effects, no smoke, and the film was in 2D. Personally, I do prefer 2D for 4DX films but only because the 3D glasses get covered with the snoap and water. Without those effects having the film in 2D seems cheap. I understand that the film hasn’t been released in 3D, but that should mean the 4DX programmers have even more freedom in using effects like rain and snoap.

Even during action scenes where the screen was filled with smoke, the theater had none. Unlike other actions scenes that used snoap for more than just snow effects (like in Blade Runner 2049 where it was used to replicate thick smog particles) here, the effects just sat unused.

The effects used were timed perfectly and used in original ways, but with some few effects, the ones used felt old by Hour Two of the film. I see no reason why this film should pull those debating between seeing it in 4DX and DBox (which just has the motion seats) or even a traditional 2D screening. Wind effects and air cannons can only carry the experience for so long, and here they failed to carry it all the way to the final credits.

Overall, The Death Cure left many unanswered questions, but the one I have the most is why so many 4DX effects sat unused.

-Review Summary-

Use of 4DX Effects- 1 out of 4
Movie Overall- 2 out of 4

Also check out my 4DX review of Coco