This week, I experienced 4Dx Cinema, the latest gimmick designed to make shit films bearable. 4Dx Cinema is designed for people without children to simulate watching a film while a feisty two-year-old violently shakes your chair, blows in your ear and spits in your face. Or at least this is how it feels.
This ‘latest development’ in film watching is nothing new. Simulator rides have sat at fairgrounds and next to piers for decades. Theme parks have also used this concept to create smaller, lower budget attractions. There is even a theme park in France entirely devoted to the concept: Parc du Futuroscope has been open since the 1980s. The difference now is that the experience is available for several hours at a time in a cinema near you. Ibuprofen gel is not included.
The film in question was Super Mario Bros, a 1 hour 30 minute video game commercial, a feat which apparently requires 3 directors to accomplish. It was a sound but unspectacular 3D animated movie geared towards children and nostalgic parents, two demographics I do not belong to. There were plenty of fun moments throughout, with comic relief and game references aplenty. The story itself was a fairly standard rehash of the King Arthur legend, but what film isn’t these days? The tension built nicely at key points in the film but the solution to each dilemma was more or less the same: an OP power up for Mario.
Jack Black as Bowser was one of the films few genuine highlights with Chris Pratt’s Mario performance breaking new ground, as I didn’t know it was possible for a voice actor to come across as wooden. Princess Peach was surprisingly well written as she played both Merlin/Obi-Wan/Dumbledore/Gandalf as well as the seemingly doomed princess.
The only time the 4Dx really added anything to the experience was during the Mario Kart segment, which was a lot of fun. By the end of the film, however, the 4Dx had become a huge annoyance, to the extent that I wanted to shout ‘stop it, I’m trying to watch a film’ at the imaginary two-year-old. The truth is, when I watch a film, I enjoy sitting still, so that I can be comfortable and relaxed and I definitely do not like it if my shoulder still hurts 48 hours later.