Although "popped" doesn't quite do the experience justice, since, in truth, I was shaken, shuddered, juddered and just plain rocked until my cherry exploded.
Thanks, Man of Steel.
After one of my Westword colleagues was gobsmacked by seeing the flick in 4DX, I decided to try out the technology for myself. I'm a movie aficionado of longstanding, but somehow the specifics of 4DX had escaped me. Nonetheless, I purposefully chose not to research the format in advance so that I could discover what it was all about, unencumbered by expectations.
In other words, I didn't know what I was getting myself into.
It didn't take long for me to figure out which 4DX theater I'd attend. There are just fifty in America, with the majority in four states: California, New York, Texas and Florida. No surprise that Denver would get a branch, since 4DX is a U.S. exclusive of Regal Cinemas, a creation credited to local billionaire Phil Anschutz. (Britain-based Cineworld bought the chain from Anschutz in 2017 but filed for bankruptcy in 2022. However, the company is no longer under bankruptcy protection and was refinanced by way of a $1.9 billion loan late last year.)
Denver's 4DX showplace, located at the Regal UA Denver Pavilions on the 16th Street Mall, is the only one between Oklahoma City and Las Vegas.
I'd already seen Superman, the film currently unspooling at the Pavilions in 4DX, having caught it on IMAX three days earlier at my go-to cineplex, the AMC Highlands Ranch 24. But I thought that would be a positive, since I'd be able to compare 4DX to what is widely considered to be the state-of-the-art way to see a movie.
Upon my arrival at the Pavilions, I learned that this was a false assumption, since the 4DX theater utilizes RealD 3D, a digital stereoscopic projection system with trademark eyeglasses (they resemble Ray-Ban knockoffs) that's been widely available since 2015. RealD 3D is better than the 3D options that preceded it: For one thing, it doesn't give me a blinding headache like the old-school version did. But RealD 3D hasn't really improved over the past decade and has some definite drawbacks, such as rendering the backs of people in reverse-angle conversation scenes into indistinct blurs.
So what the hell was 4DX? I should have been tipped off by the auditorium's chairs, which sported metal foot supports of the kind associated with video-arcade games. But I was too distracted by the unconscionable number of commercials with which Regal subjected its customers. I arrived at the listed 11:30 a.m. start time for the sparsely attended screening (there weren't enough of us to field a five-on-five basketball game), but the sort of ads I rigorously avoid on TV and online bombarded me steadily for another ten minutes.
A clip for the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps changed the equation. A few seconds into it, my seat lunged forward with no warning, practically dumping me face-first into a sticky spot on the floor, then bucked backwards like a mechanical horse at Gilley's Saloon. As the convulsing continued, I burst out laughing.
My seat settled back into place after the Fantastic Four spot faded out, but freaked out twice more before the feature presentation — amid yet another plug for the Marvel opus, this one in 3D, and, to my surprise, a Jeep promo. At least I think it was about Jeep: I was so thrown by my seat's simulation of sailing over dirt roads at life-threatening speeds that the thirty seconds of hype could have focused on a Prius and I wouldn't have known the difference.
By this point, I thought I knew what to expect from 4DX, and I was happy I'd just seen Superman, since I had a good idea when I'd need to hang on for dear life. The picture opens with Superman (David Corenswet) crashing into a patch of earth covered with ice, and sure enough, my seat reacted to the impact as if I'd been plummeting along with him. My seat likewise mirrored the fight scenes, energetically swerving, dipping and jerking as the action dictated — and my recently digested breakfast did likewise.
Motion wasn't 4DX's singular surprise, though. When Superman flew, fans blew through the theater in an attempt to duplicate the sensation of flight. During such sequences, droplets of water also fell, presumably because Superman was unintentionally seeding the clouds. When, in the second half of the movie, another character splashed enemies with acid, the droplets returned — but fortunately, they didn't burn through my clothing.
The seats mostly stayed put during dialogue scenes, but there were exceptions. At one point, when Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) hurriedly grabbed her purse, my chair snapped to one side as if she'd slugged someone. I was glad I hadn't ordered a large soda and left the lid off, or the entire thing would have sloshed into my lap.
The biggest effects were saved to the end. During the concluding battle, an airborne Superman was swarmed by a flying robotic horde, and to free himself, he executed a tornado-like rotation that caused the vicious combatants to fly off in every conceivable direction. The tactic caused my seat to go into its craziest spasm yet, and the result was a bit like being inside a blender as a chef randomly switched settings. Grind! Chop! Stir! Puree!
The developer of 4DX is CJ 4DPlex, a spinoff of a theater chain in South Korea, where the concept bowed in 2009. Over the next few years, 4DX popped up in Central America and South America, and in 2014, CJ 4DPlex announced that it would soon debut in Los Angeles under the auspices of Regal and another Anschutz property, AEG. Four years later, Cineworld revealed plans to open at least 79 4DX theaters, but the 2020 pandemic and subsequent financial challenges slowed the rollout.
For me, the corollary to 4DX that immediately sprang to mind was Star Tours, a ride at assorted Disney theme parks around the planet in which fun-seekers are herded onto a faux spaceship that approximates actual flight by way of seating that shifts back, forth, up and down in conjunction with quick-cut images of intergalactic dogfights and the like. But 4DX significantly prolongs the adventure. While Star Tours only lasts five minutes or so, Superman probably shook for half of its two-hour-and-nine-minute runtime.
Another distinction: While Star Tours and other Disney attractions that deploy similar gadgetry typically include seat belts or safety bars, the 4DX chairs at the Pavilions are entirely free of such accoutrements. There was no posted pre-show warning that I saw, either, although the Regal 4DX website does include the following cautions:
By purchasing a ticket to a 4DX presentation, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to comply with the 4DX Safety Guidelines set forth below, you enter at your own risk, and that neither Regal Cinemas and/or 4DX assumes any responsibility or liability for any injuries or damages suffered as a result of viewing a presentation in a 4DX equipped auditorium.Fortunately, I don't suffer from any of these maladies, so I escaped from my 4DX baptism more or less unscathed — and overall, I had a good time. The idea behind 4DX doesn't qualify as new: I saw the ultra-silly disaster movie Earthquake presented in Sensurround, a gimmick in which giant speakers caused seats to rattle as the ground split, in 1974. But the thrills have been substantially upgraded since then, and they'll likely amuse anyone who doesn't care about paying attention to the actual movie. I was glad I'd already seen Superman, since I don't know how well I would have been able to follow the story amid all the jostling if I didn't already know where it was going.
4DX equipped auditoriums employ motion enabled chairs, which create strong vibrations and sensations, as well as other environmental controls for simulated weather or other conditions, such as lightning, rain, flashing (strobe) lights, fog and strong scents.
The 4DX equipment can aggravate existing medical conditions or cause users to suffer a loss of equilibrium or balance, headaches or dizziness and in extraordinary circumstances, epilepsy-like symptons [sic]. If you are pregnant, elderly, physically or mentally sensitive or have any of the following health conditions, you should not use a 4DX auditorium: high blood pressure, heart conditions, allergies, neck or back conditions or epilepsy.
The more frenetic and brainless the movie, the more you're likely to enjoy 4DX. But no matter what, it'll definitely shake you up.
