Toy Story 4
Director: Josh Cooley
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts
Genre: Too many Ds
Toy Story 4 has pretty much ended its run in our cinemas, but that’s okay because this isn’t so much a review of Toy Story 4 but of how I viewed it.
4DX is the latest marketing gimmick from Sydney’s Broadway cinema complex which is struggling to remain relevant in an ever increasingly cutthroat competition for kiddies’ eyeballs. While the vibrating, bouncing chairs, rain, wind, scents and fog have been there since October, my kids only recently found out about it, and given they had no interest in the movie until they discovered the 3D-4DX option you’d have to say it’s working.
There’s actually nothing new about 4D cinemas. They’ve been popular (supposedly) in Asia and the USA for ages, and at Movie World on the Gold Coast the family experienced a much less sophisticated version that even my wife who suffers extreme motion sickness could manage (just).
It’s just a shame that Toy Story 4 was a let-down. It lacks all the originality and cleverness of the earlier films and indeed the novelty value of seeing the old Baby Boomer and Gen-X toys come to life has well and truly expired. What’s left is a flat and mostly humourless tale where even the 3D-4DX couldn’t save it.
4DX adds to the fun when it rains in the film and in a moving car, but for the most part it’s just bouncing around for no real reason. Indeed the best use of 4DX was with the trailer for a CGI-heavy martial arts film (certainly wouldn’t want to watch that with the missus!).
Perhaps, like 3D or IMAX which really only add value to films made for their formats, 4DX will only really work once films are made with 4DX in mind.
Rating: 3D
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film@ssh.com.au
