A blog about 3D cinema

Background The fifth Spider-Man film in 15 years, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is also Spidey’s second 3D film. We were reasonably underwhelmed by the 'original' The Amazing Spider-Man , despite it being shot in native 3D. How does the most recent sequel fare in comparison? Read on for all the details on the film’s post-converted 3D, its depth, effects and whether or not we should save the 2D or 3D versions for archival purposes. Post-Converted 3D Unlike its immediate predecessor, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was largely shot on film, and post-converted to 3D. This task fell to Legend 3D, and Stereo Supervisor Ed W. Marsh . The company has a mixed record with its stereo conversions . Some of their earlier work left much to be desired (eg: Alice In Wonderland and Green Hornet ). Like much of the conversion industry, they've upped their game in recent years (eg: Top Gun , Man Of Steel ). The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is another  massive step forward for them; average viewers won...

Background: The best 3D film of the year? Ordinarily conservative critics have fallen over themselves to proclaim  Gravity a landmark cinematic event, ranking it amongst distinguished 3D peers like Avatar , Hugo and Life Of Pi. James Cameron, the king of commercially successful 3D films, told Variety "I think it's the best space photography ever done, I think it’s the best space film ever done, and it's the movie I've been hungry to see for an awful long time." Riding a wave of breathless hype,  Gravity  broke US October box-office records, and is fast becoming the 'word of mouth' hit of the year. So... does it live up to the praise? Is Gravity a ground-breaking achievement in 3D film-making? Post-converted / Natively Rendered 3D: Modern-day 3D films are produced through three broadly classifiable means; 'native 3D' (where the majority of the movie was shot with stereoscopically capable cameras that have two lenses to capture the infor...

Background: Pacific Rim is Guillermo Del Toro's first film in 5 years. Much ink has already been spilled about his near-misses directing The Hobbit  film  trilogy   and the potential James Cameron / Tom Cruise adaptation of  At The Mountains Of Madness . Thwarted project after thwarted project, it seemed Del Toro just couldn't catch a break. Luckily, the big man had a big plan: direct a big film about big robots fighting big monsters. For all  Pacific Rim 's high-minded intentions, the movie's essentially Del Toro's love letter to the likes of Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla; his long-simmering kaiju vs mecha tale. So, how'd he fare? Was his 'boyhood dream' picture better than Peter Jackson's King Kong , or Spielberg's Jurassic Park ? More pressingly for 3Defence, is its 3D any good? Post-Converted 3D: For a long time, Del Toro voiced a hedged opinion towards adding 3D to his films. In pre-production for his version of  The Hobbit he started...

Background: World War Z is (loosely) based on a 2006 novel by Max Brooks. The book is a cracking read, and we were hoping the film would be just as outstanding as its source-material. The production of the film encountered multiple woes, all of which are well documented , but the first few trailers successfully dispelled most audience's doubts about the film. Indeed, in its first weekend, World War Z mightily exceeded all box-office expectations. Critics are divided on the film, while audiences are more generally positive towards horror and action pictures, so have dished out a healthy B+ CinemaScore. Post-Converted 3D: World War Z was shot in 2D, using Alexa cameras , and later post-converted into 3D by Prime Focus World. The firm delivered 2076 converted shots, assisted by 400 artists. The firm's website goes into great detail about the conversion, and when stereo firms rave about their own work we tend to listen. We've seen several projects recently where t...

This is a compilation of 3Defence's 3D film reviews. Hopefully the table below provides a quick resource to see all of our reviews at a glance, and also shows we're not overtly biased in one direction or the other between 2D and 3D versions of films*. Enjoy! Film Title What type of 3D? Which version to preserve? Edge Of Tomorrow Post-Converted 3D 2D X-Men: Days Of Future Past Native 3D 3 D Godzilla Post-Converted 3D 3 D The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Post-Converted 3D 3 D Captain America: The Winter Soldier Post-Converted 3D 2D Gravity Rendered 3D 3 D The Wizard Of Oz Post-Converted 3D 3 D Pacific Rim Post-Converted 3D 2D World War Z Post-Converted 3D 3 D Iron Man 3 Post-Converted 3D 2D Man Of Steel Post-Converted 3D 3 D Jurassic Park 3D Post-Converted 3D 2D Oz The Great And Powerful Native 3D 2D Life Of Pi Native 3D 3 D Bait 3D Native 3D 2D Frankenweenie Post-Converted 3D 3 D Dredd Native 3D 3 D Katy Perry: Part Of Me Both 2D The Amazing Spider-Man Native 3D ...

Background Obviously the third film in the series, Iron Man 3 is actually the fifth time we've seen Robert Downey Jr. play the role of Tony Stark. It's also the second time he's collaborated with the film's director, Shane Black. For the latest Stark instalment, the pair have conspired to chop the titular hero's ego down to size, perhaps hoping to provide a more likeable character arc than what Iron Man 2 offered us. We'll discuss plot points later though, for now, let's have a look at the third film's usage of 3D! How was it? Should you see it in 2D or 3D? We'll investigate below in our usual template-driven style, in the hopes you'll be able to make an informed movie-going decision. Post-Converted 3D Like The Avengers and Thor before it, Iron Man 3 was shot digitally, and post-converted into 3D. 3Defence's view of The Avengers was that the film greatly benefited from an extra dimension, and the movie-going public appeared t...

Background: To date, despite owning DC Comics' entire catalogue of superheroes, Warner Brothers have taken a small-scale - or at least self-contained - approach to their big-screen adaptations. Certainly their DC films have not been as far-reaching or synergistic as anything from Disney's Marvel-verse. Warners, seeing Marvel's successes - and perhaps fearing a time when The Hobbit  can't be split into any further films - promptly commissioned another blockbuster series from Christopher Nolan and his Dark Knight team. Taking on the Man Of Steel himself   is no small challenge .  The brief Warners likely gave was that the film needed to broadly introduce aliens to Earth, show Superman punching bad guys, and earn big Dark Knight -sized blockbuster grosses. Some challenge! Nolan promptly recruited 300 and Watchmen  " visionary " director Zack Snyder to helm the mayhem. The resulting film was released yesterday and 3Defence was there in a packed auditorium ...

UPDATE - we've now reviewed Man Of Steel's post-converted 3D . In the lead-up to June 14th, we're getting more and more footage released for the upcoming film, Man Of Steel . The Superman flick is being post-converted into 3D (which we can't imagine producer Christopher Nolan is very happy about). Perhaps proving how forgettable Superman Returns was, many news agencies and bloggers have incorrectly reported that Man Of Steel is the caped boy scout's first 3D outing. It's fair to say that  Steel 's director, Zac Snyder, is wary of Returns ' luke-warm reception. The 3D footage used in that film was intermittent, with long periods of time passing in 2D. Snyder has upped the stakes by saying , "anticipating how audiences today embrace 3D, we designed and photographed the movie in a way that would allow Man of Steel  to captivate those movie goers." Indeed, Man Of Steel is actually Zac Snyder's second 3D film; the first being the atrocio...

Background: You know the story of  Jurassic Park 's   1993 release. It was "An Adventure 65 Million Years In The Making." It busted all blocks there were to be busted; it claimed the title of #1 Highest Grossing Film of All Time (until  Titanic came along); it seared words like "CGI" and "Digital Sound" into the public consciousness; it inspired two sequels and then... never really got old. Two decades on, the effects in Jurassic Park are still held as a benchmark by many. Either the experience of watching it was so seminal for a generation of blown-away moviegoers, or - shockingly - the film has aged like a fine wine and improved with time. Universal is celebrating the film's 20th birthday (we feel old just typing that) with a 3D re-release. Audiences are slowly warying of these 3D retrospectives, but Jurassic Park 3D' s launch looks to have reversed a downward trend in re-release box-office grosses . Perhaps that's because  Juras...

Background Oz The Great And Powerful is Sam Raimi's first 3D movie. Having licked the wounds of  Spider-Man 3, Oz  marks Raimi's return to the land of gigantic budgets, tons of CGI and 'franchise friendly' material. Optimists viewed the release of Oz as an opportunity for L. Frank Baum's classic novels to be visualised in the modern age, leading to a series worthy of their reputation as American Mythology. Cynics viewed the film's existence as a greedy crash-grab by Disney, fuelled by the phenomenal +$1billion box-office success of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland . Meanwhile, others fretted that the 1939 classic Wizard Of Oz was just as fresh today as it was then and, frankly, didn't-need-a-prequel-thank-you-very-much. So... having set the scene for audience expectations, let's dive into the 3D of Oz The Great And Powerful ! Native 3D If you fell in the 'cynic' camp of the audience, you might be surprised how little 'cash-gr...