Hollywood A-list director Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies, Arlington Road) and newcomer Catherine Owens team up to break new cinematic ground by co-helming U2 3D -- the first three-dimensional concert film in movie history. The effort intercuts footage culled from several U2 shows on their 2005-2006 Vertigo tour in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, Argentina, with Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. performing before rapt audiences. The picture opens with several thematically
light rock songs, such as "Beautiful Day" and "Vertigo," but soon segues into more politically conscious material at the hands of social-change advocate Bono and his bandmates, such as the numbers "Bullet the Blue Sky," "Love and Peace or Else," and "Sunday Bloody Sunday"; at one critical point, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is projected high above the audience. Pellington, Owens, and cinematographers Tom Krueger and Peter Anderson make frequent use of a roving camera and multi-layered 3-D effects; they also step away from the approach utilized in the band's previous concert film U2: Rattle and Hum by omitting interviews and focusing exclusively on concert footage. The full version of U2 3D runs 80 minutes; a 56-minute "preview" version ran out of competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
The 3-D visuals envelop you, majestically, and that effect fuses with the band's surround-sound rapture to create a full-scale sensory high. U2 3D makes you feel stoned on movies.
The 3-D element is unobtrusively handled, except when it perfectly re-creates the woman who's always perched on her boyfriend's shoulders in front of you at a concert...
The concert itself is spectacularly produced, with Jumbotrons providing backdrop and long, curving runways that allow Bono and other band members to move far out into the crowd.
By the time Bono turns to the camera, reaching out to his audience in a typically theatrical plea for peace, love and understanding, one half expects his outstretched hand to surge through the screen and seize one of your own.
U23D captures the band and the excitement of their live shows in a way that no other medium could. The combination of art and science, technology and emotion, separates U23D from being just a nifty 3D experiment and elevates it to a pop mast
The rock mega-band U2 has made so many concert films that it's hard to get excited about this one.... But the film is a revelation, redefining 3D live-action moviemaking.
Seeing U2 in IMAX 3D blew my mind. It was like seeing all of the lighting and flashing words (especially in the song "One") in a regular concert, except it all was realistically coming out at you. All the songs here were great (I was even introduced to a few that I'd never heard before), and the performance was
beautiful. Therefore, U2 3D is worth seeing in IMAX if it's still there; I don't know if it was released to DVD.
September 18, 2011
Alexander Diminiano
Super Reviewer
I do believe this is actually the closest I have ever gotten to having a religious experience. Ever. Never mind the 3D aspect, the amazing shots that these cameras captured were unique for absolutely any concert footage I have ever seen. Amazing. Amazing! I want this on DVD so freaking bad.
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