Having been on vacation to the Cayman Islands, where I didn’t stumble across a single movie theater — 3D or otherwise — in the tropical Caribbean British Isles paradise boasting more registered businesses than the 54,000 residents
(granted, I didn’t look real hard to find a dark movie theater as opposed to basking in the sun of Seven Mile Beach or enjoying the clear 85-degree waters with friendly stingrays), I decided to quickly catch up on the deluge of new 3D movies immediately upon my return.
The trio of 3D movies (plus a new 3D cartoon) I saw within 11 hours began at 10 a.m. Saturday with back-to-back showings viewings at my local multiplex of this weekend’s new “Cats & Dogs: The Return of Kitty Galore” from Warner Bros. and Universal’s recently released “Despicable Me,” followed Saturday evening by an advanced screening at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood of Summit’s “Step Up 3D,” being released this Friday, August 6, by Disney.
Only one of the movies was a big disappointment, but moreso in terms of the movie itself than the 3D. None of the films pushes the 3D effects off the screen into the audience as in a traditional IMAX large format documentary, which I will continue to insist must happen to avoid accelerating audience ambivalence to 3D, but some utlize the technology much better than others within the current short-sighted pervasive strategy of simply increasing the perception of depth into and beyond the screen as looking through a window:
* “Step Up 3D“: First and foremost this movie is great fun, features terrific dancing and enjoyable new lead actors and dancers (and familiar fun dancers like Twitch from “So You Think You Can Dance?”), all within the context of a very basic and familiar plot, for which you willingly overlook the credibility potholes common to all such movies featuring dancer gangs/competitors.
Billed as the first feature-length dance movie in 3D, director Jon Chu uses the 3D very effectively, not only with the dances choreographed to accentuate visual depth but also in shots of characters with the New York skyline in the background and most every otherwise routine interior shot. He even finds creative use of 3D during the closing credits — the text and graphics, not the overly long footage of dancer on a chair dancing with his hands aimed at the lens on left side of screen). It’s hard to know whether the occasional blurring of dancers is a result of the 3D or the modern cinematography style that often features blurred images in music videos and even action movie scenes, but those problems are minimal.
* “Coyote Falls” (Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon preceding “Cats and Dogs”): This first Looney Tunes cartoon in 3D from Warner deserves far more attention than it is getting. The new generation of producers have perfectly captured not only the tone of the original Looney Tunes theatrical shorts of the 1940s – 1960s but also the outrageous cartoon violence inflicted on the hapless Wile E. Coyote, which is inexplicably hilarious even if socially incorrect. All of that is accentuated brilliantly in the three minutes of 3D here, especially with all the aerial shots of the coyote looking down steep canyons to the road runner below.
* “Cats & Dogs: The Return of Kitty Galore“: This four-legged 007 spoof sequel to a poor original doesn’t offer much more entertainment value than its predecessor or similar recent films featuring talking CG animals on spy missions such as “G-Force,” which is why none of the others have performed well and why this one opened with only about $12.5 million this weekend. There were only a handful of kids and parents watching this kids movie in my theater Saturday morning on the first weekend in release compared to the nearly full auditorium to see “Despicable Me” on its fourth weekend.
The 3D is serviceable at best but offers nothing distinctive and is one that would understandably make customers regret paying the extra $3 for the 3D, but more disappointed that they paid any of the ticket price.
* “Despicable Me“: There’s a reason this CGI animated movie that is not from Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, or Fox has grossed nearly $200 million. It’s very clever, very funny, and it features one of the best consistent employments of 3D in an animated movie despite many complaints that the 3D is superfluous. In fact, the 3D is very obvious and enhancing to the visual enjoyment of the movie.
And there are several insider visual references, including an NBC logo positioned near a Jumbotron video display (NBC owns Universal), a sign on the door of “The Bank of Evil” reads “Formerly Lehman Brothers,” and the main character’s name (Gru) during a disco dance sequence on a very slightly altered Blu-ray Disc logo that now reads “Gru-ray Disc.”
— By Scott Hettrick