Last week my friends and I went to the show. When the movie
let out, the lobby was swamped with people. They were lined up everywhere. At
five in the afternoon, on a Monday. It took a while to pick our way through to
the exit.
All these folks had turned out to see two of summer’s
biggest blockbusters, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey. Both are
screening in IMAX. The Odyssey director Christopher Nolan encouraged viewers to
catch his new movie in IMAX to get the full effect of his work. He’d worked
with engineers to come up with better, lighter cameras allowed him to shoot his
entire 3-hour feature film in IMAX format, which was about impossible to do
before. Add to this that there are only 25 theater-screens in the country that
can project in the ultimate experience, IMAX 70 millimeter, and the only one in
Chicagoland, which is this theater we attended — so moviegoers are making the
trek across the metro area and the state of Illinois and even from other states
to this one theater, and to this one theater’s lobby. But here is one of
history’s biggest stories, shot in a huge way by a huge director, so people are
there in search of a unique, unforgettable experience.
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| How my neck felt after my first IMAX movie. |
Unless you’re a wheelchair user, that is. Because if you are, then this could be an unforgettable experience for how utterly disappointing it was. In some IMAX theaters, the patrons who use wheelchairs were an afterthought, which was my own and only IMAX experience, long ago. These are the IMAX theaters where the ADA seats are right in front of the towering screen, or like mine, crammed in at one side or the other. I remember less about the movie shown and more about my neck craning the entire time. In a situation like that you are not even able to take in the whole picture, and you’re literally not in any position to enjoy it. The poor seating made the movie uncomfortable and uninteresting, as in I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
Still, if possible I really wanted to see this flick with the
special IMAX sauce, so at the website I checked the seating diagram. I wasn’t
confident about what I was seeing. The thing to do at this point would be to
call the manager and arrange a look-see before buying tickets. But no, I’m
jumping through extra hoops every day of the week because that’s what we’ve got
to do, right, but enough already. It’s show time and I’m damned hooped out. So,
I reserved for the standard format screening with guaranteed midhouse ADA
seating for me.
If it helps anyone out there, Copilot AI suggested we might
find better ADA seating at IMAX theaters built in 2015 or later, and at theaters
advertising “IMAX with laser,” both of which offer more mindful, more equitable
design. It sounds like the earlier generation of theaters may be the spine-bending
offenders. Useful information to know, if Nolan’s IMAX cameras take off in the
industry, in search of The Odyssey-like box office riches.
In the end, it didn’t matter what format I chose, I was
disappointed in The Odyssey. The Nolan movies I’ve seen I liked, ranging from
adrenaline-stoking thrill-rides to spine-tingling weirdness. This one had none of
those qualities. To me, it was just crap storytelling: boring, confusing and
ponderous. Which is a shame because Homer was literally a storyteller, not a
writer. He recited stories to others, like a bard, and a disabled bard at that.
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