4DX Makes No Sense

By accident last weekend, I saw Argylle in a 4DX theater. 4DX, if you are fortunate enough not to know, combines a bunch of “enhancements” to the moviegoing experience. The seats move, shake, and even jab you in the back; water, compressed air, and scent are sprayed on and around you. It’s the cinema version of the roller coaster simulators at Disney and other theme parks, just not quite so intense.

4DX seems to be growing, with equipped theaters in dozens of countries and a reported $50 million in box office last year. Occasional movies seem to target the 4DX experience, especially when it can be paired with 3D. A 3D movie in 4DX is the fullest immersion Hollywood has to offer, at least in the physical sense. If you have an imagination and prefer to get lost in the story… well, your seat is going to punch you in the back, so I wouldn’t be too optimistic.

I’ve enjoyed roller coaster simulators, so I’m not against the underlying concept. But as an enhancement to Argylle (or the artificially kinetic trailers that preceded it), 4DX was a flop. There are two core problems, neither of which I think will be worked out without at least one more generation of tech that skips over 4DX entirely.

First, most movies aren’t 4DX-first. (And thank god for that: A couple of minutes in a Disney simulator is about as far as the narrative possibilities can stretch.) Films are designed to be enjoyed in a certain way, one that doesn’t involve machines randomly squirting scent. I can’t imagine that the makers of Argylle gave 4DX a second thought until very late in the process, at which point they left the 4DX adaptation to a third party.

I can imagine some limited technological improvements that might still be beneficial if they were tacked on at the end of production. Surround sound comes to mind: Directors and sound designers have a pretty good idea what they’re working with, but if there were some super-enhanced sound experience available in only a few dozen theaters, there might be a way to remix the soundtrack in post-production to take advantage of it. But that’s just a boost to existing tech, not an appeal to entire new senses.

All of the swerving and spraying of 4DX feels tacked on, I suspect, even in movies that were made with an eye on 4DX. Coaster simulators manage to achieve some degree of immersion with a short, intense ride, sometimes combined with complete darkness or an all-encompassing screen. 4DX can’t do that for two hours in a big room with a few hundred seats. I don’t think immersion is possible. So you’re left with these occasional sensory “bonuses” that disrupt the flow of the movie.

The nature of simulator immersion points to the other core problem with 4DX for film. Simulators typically give you the point of view of one character at a time–usually the hero. So you experience Star Wars as Luke Skywalker. (I think–it’s been awhile.) Your seat tilts when your character is taking evasive action in a fighter jet; water sprays when you skim the ocean; scent is released when your love interest walks by. (I guess; the decision to include scent in 4DX is incomprehensible to me.) The simulator allows you to more closely mirror one character’s experience.

The catch: If the hero is you, the hero isn’t on screen! That works for 90 seconds at Disney World, but it would be nonsensical in a full-length film. And it’s always going to be. Martin Scorsese griped about 4DX (and other newer film modes) because if a director creates for it, the work is that much weaker when presented in any other format. A movie made for 3D isn’t as effective in 2D, and so on. A film relying heavily on the hero’s point of view, to optimize for 4DX, would be excruciating in a vanilla theater.

So the tacked-on 4DX experience is a hodgepodge. Your seat shakes when a bullet hits something, regardless of whether it hits the hero, the villain, or the wall. The seatback jabs you when somebody is in a fistfight. If there’s water in the shot, some is sprayed. At one point in Argylle, my seat gently swayed, as if on a glider, to accompany a panoramic shot. Now I’m the cameraman, too? It’s the five-senses equivalent of being forced to listen to DVD commentary, but with the commentary track switching at random.

I simply can’t work out how this would ever make sense. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and wrong, and this is what will get teens back to the cinema. At least I now know to steer clear of that theater. And I know that if I re-watch Argylle, the second time through will be considerably more relaxing.