Even though everyone in the cinema knew it was coming, when the tornado hit we felt in our whole body. We braced ourselves against the vibrations as our seats began to shake but we knew things were serious as the pieces of the ceiling started to fall and someone shouted out, “This room isn’t built to withstand this kind of weather!” Suddenly the screen itself was completely ripped away by the terrible forces of nature and with eyes aghast we watched people sucked out into the swirling maelstrom, never to be seen again.
Lucky then, that at the time I was inside the (relative) safety of the 4DX theater inside Cineworld Leicester Square, London watching the recently released movie Twisters in which a tornado tears up a movie theater. Seeing and experiencing this delivers a well-worked “play within a play” moment that for me, seals the deal on 4DX moving from a silly, but fun gimmick, to an amazing way to watch a movie – though only if it’s the right movie.
If you don’t know, 4DX turns movie watching into a theme-park-like experience, with sensory effects that occur in sync with the action on screen. The seats move and sway, air blasts you in your neck, you feel impacts in your back, and flashes of lightning appear from the sides of the screen. There are smells, smoke and even sprays of water, which on a humid evening I quite appreciated. I noted this effect could be turned off via a button on the seat armrest. But why would you do that? As our heroes burst from their cars to escape from the onrushing sound and fury, the splash of water made me feel the danger – a little bit more.
A technology originally from South Korea, and, as of writing, in 35 Cineworld screens in the UK, and up to 800 worldwide, the guardians of 4DX must have thanked the gods when they realised that Twisters was spinning towards them on the schedules. With its extreme weather theme, there cannot be a movie more perfect for the 4DX treatment than Twisters, the “stand-alone” sequel to the 1996 movie Twister, which I have to admit I’ve never seen.
I’ve now seen several movies in 4DX, with mixed results. Way back in 2015, the first Ant-Man movie was my first encounter with it, and I enjoyed it: I recall feeling like I was pulled down the plug hole of a bath along with our diminutive superhero. Rogue One in 2016 didn’t work as well for me, but Jumaji: The Next Level, was great: Fast and Furious 9 was a terrible movie that made me cross, with one chap spending the whole time on his phone, even though he has paid for a 4DX experience. Maybe he was the wise one.
Twisters in 4DX though was something else. The showing was packed, which is saying something when each ticket is in the region of £20/$25. Probably they need to charge this much to make up for the reduced popcorn sales as once the movie starts and the seats start to go, anyone who takes a full bucket into a 4DX screening will be sweeping most of it up from the floor.
The film, particularly in this format was certainly a crowd-pleaser. The opening salvo was so intense that there was a ripple of nervous laughter when it died down, while much of the film was accompanied by whoops and gasps by the audience – even in the quiet bits. This was possibly due to the effect on the relatively young audience of the chemistry between Daisy Edgar Jones’s somewhat over-glamourous meteorologist/Twister-chaser Kate and amateur storm-chaser Tyler, played by the necessarily hunky Glen Powell. I think the water spraying was needed to calm them down.
As someone who normally champions seeking the ultimate in sound and picture, it has to be said that the digital image was noticeably soft, the sound was front heavy and the screen itself seemed to have some weave or scratches that impacted the image which could be seen in shots of the sky – of which there were a fair few. However, we were all enjoying being thrown around battered for this to matter.
OK, 4DX is not for purists or cineastes. It’s unabashedly designed to be fun – and when the movie and motors in the seats match up as well as they do with Twisters, you’d have to be churlish not to let a smile appear on your face.
It seems a shame then that Twisters will be losing its place in 4DX after just a single week to the juggernaut that is Deadpool vs Wolverine and while I’m sure that will have its charm in 4DX it’s Twisters that deserves to have the longer run in the format. Just as the BFI brings back Nolan movies on film to the IMAX to meet the demand for IMAX 15/70, I hope that Cineworld sees sense and lets Twisters spin around again into the 4DX so more people can experience its dumb but fun, visceral, madness.
