Did you hear the news last week? Three AMC theatres in the Toronto area suddenly sprouted IMAX auditoriums overnight! And they’re using them to screen Paranormal Activity 2!
Here’s the scariest thing about that – scarier even than the idea of paying $18.50 to watch a movie shot primarily with low-resolution security cameras in a high-definition format: those IMAX rooms aren’t really IMAX at all.
Technically, yes, they’re licensed and calibrated by the IMAX corporation – the same people who brought us the exquisite large-format IMAX experience we know and love down at the Cinesphere, and over at the Scotiabank, and out at the Mississauga Coliseum.
But, as Aziz Ansari so memorably ranted last summer, this is not IMAX. The retrofitted AMC screens are what IMAX – dancing delicately around the difference in this press release – calls “The IMAX Experience,” expanded outwards and slightly curved to vaguely remind audiences of seeing a movie in actual IMAX.
If you dig deep enough into the IMAX website, you’ll eventually find a description of the difference between a “classic design IMAX theatre” and a “multiplex design IMAX theatre”. The former refers to the IMAX auditorium we know and love the latter is a standard megaplex room that’s been retrofitted with “immersive patented theatre geometry” and a louder, “laser-aligned” sound system. The screen can be as large as 74′ x 46′. (A “classic IMAX” screen starts at 51′ x 37′, and gets up to 117′ x 96′.)
The IMAX Experience doesn’t use film at all. Twinned digital projectors – equipped with “IMAX’s proprietary image enhancer” – simulate the enhanced definition of a large-format film presentation, but it’s like using a line doubler in a home theatre. No new detail is produced you just get the illusion of a sharper image.
(Admittedly, Paranormal Activity 2 probably isn’t the best title with which to gauge the wow factor of the room. But that’s what they opened with.)
In AMC’s defence, this boondoggle isn’t their fault. This is the IMAX corporation’s baby all the way – a misguided attempt to extend the brand into conventional cinemas without requiring the expensive construction of a proper IMAX auditorium, and appeal to exhibitors looking to get in on some of that sweet IMAX action for Hollywood blockbusters like The Dark Knight and Avatar.
So, to recap: The IMAX Experience may say IMAX on the door, and it may come with the premium ticket price we associate with IMAX, but come on. IMAX is a vertiginous, all- encompassing six-storey experience that wraps itself around you and drops you deep into the movie.
The IMAX Experience, by contrast, makes the movie a little bigger, a little louder and a lot more expensive. That’s not IMAX – or at least it shouldn’t be.
Other IMAX in Toronto:
View IMAX Theaters: Canada in a larger map
