Jess is a massive U2 fan. She owns every piece of music ever produced by them. She was so excited for this movie to open that she actually, only half jokingly asked if we could fly down to Salt Lake City last weekend where the movie was already open. Needless to say, I put a heavy kibosh on that one. Instead, we waiting until this past Friday when the movie opened here.
The movie itself is quite a piece of work. This is the first 3d movie I’ve seen in many many years. I can tell you one thing; 3d has come a LONG way since the old days of the paper framed red and blue glasses you got in your box of Lucky Charms to watch the 3d presentation of The Day After. They give you a hefty set of alternating polarized glasses that neatly separated the left and right images for each eye. The shape of the glasses suggests a Elvis Costello type look. I thought that they really missed a great marketing tie in. They should have totally made the glasses look like a replica of Bono’s shades. How great would that have been?
The movie is projected by a digital projector which creates a beautiful crisp image. I’m a HUGE fan of digital movies. You don’t realize how bad traditional film movies look with all the scratches and pops and dirt. It’s like the difference between VHS and DVD. Or even VHS and HD-DVD… er… I mean BluRay. Fantastic.
The movie itself is a straight concert movie, shot at their live show in Buenos Aries. No behind the scenes or anything. It starts when they come on stage and ends after the encore. I’m enough of a U2 fan to recognize about 3/4 of the songs they played, including Vertigo, Beautiful Day, and Where the Streets Have No Name. The director kept the camera moving and really made the most of the 3d thing. Shots of the drum kit were very cool, as were closeups of the band… But the absolute peak of the technology was when they would shoot across the top of the crowd. Seeing thousands of waving arms or jumping bodies in 3d was unreal. Makes your eyes pop out of your head. Also, at the end, the started flashing text on the screen (the same text used at the concert in the background) but it was laid over the concert in such a way it looked like it was about 30 feet in front of the screen. Amazing stuff. The runtime is only 80 minutes so it certainly doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.
Even if you are a marginal U2 fan, I would recommend seeing this flick. The visuals alone are worth the price of admission. Plus, the music is solid enough to help you get past Bono’s slight megalomania.