We went to the Hoyts IMax Cinema in Cannington to watch the Watchmen last week. It was my second viewing and the rest of the crew were a mix of seasoned Watchmen veterans, and tentative – cynical even – Watchmen noobs.
The movie itself has been described better elsewhere. I think it was brilliant, but whomever collated the heavily clichéd soundtrack really missed a couple of golden opportunities. “Life on Mars” during the flyover of said planet, and “End Of The World As We Know It” during the end sequence or credits would round it off nicely.
But the IMax Cinema… Quite the misnomer, that. I’ve been to IMax cinemas in other cities, and they are an impressive, immersive experience.
The Perth one however, was not an IMax. This was – at best – an ILittleBitBigger. The experience it offered could be very easily reproduced just by sitting three rows closer to the screen than you normally do in a regular cinema.
For twice the price, I was expecting, yes, more. Alarm bells rang when the cashier quite desperately informed us that, “There’s no refunds”. Clearly I’m not the first to register my dissatisfaction.
An IMax cinema is supposed to give you that feeling of scale. You’re supposed to not feel safe in there because the screen is so massive, and you’re up so high, that instinct screams out for an abseiling harness or safety net. The feeling of insecurity is not supposed to be triggered by a financial fleecing.
You’re supposed to feel dwarfed, insignificant, miniscule in the face of such magnificence. Like standing at foot of Uluru at sunset, or comparing your own idiocy to that of a Manly rugby player. The wall of sound is supposed to be murder (© Phil Spector). You take someone who is dubious about their likely enjoyment of the film to an Imax so that there’s every chance they’ll either be overwhelmed by the experience, or their otherwise vociferous complaints will be inaudible.
Experiences like this make it so hard to understand why so many people would rather download, really.
As it was, the highlight of the evening ended up being a drag race with a fastidiously permed man in a red Corvette convertible. We won. In my divvy van. Tosser.
Oh how we laughed.
