Third Time's in 3D!

Yes, it's the third installation of the Ice Age franchise... but that's not what I'm hinting at in the title...

It was my son's third time to be in a movie theater. His first one was at the SM Mall of Asia's Imax Theater (Madagascar 2) and the second was just two weeks ago in Trinoma (Transformers 2 - Revenge of the Fallen).

Then, yesterday, it was at Trinoma's Cinema 4... Ice Age 3 - Dawn of the Dinosaurs... IN 3D!

It's quite an experience, and that goes for all of us (myself, my wife, my brother and mother)... with the exception of my son who didn't seem to be impressed with the 3-dimensional magic. But I believe it was because the glasses bothered him (more on this later).

The 3-dimensional trickery was pretty impressive, really.

We were seated at Row "N" (the farthest from the screen, as far as the "ordinary" seating is concerned) and, as soon as the movie started, my wife said "parang ang lapit..." ("it feels so near...").

Take note, the glasses do not have any magnifying qualities. I tried taking the glasses off a few times to see what the images looked like. All I saw were blurry images... or, to be more precise, "double images". But it's nothing like the 3D illusions we have been accustomed to seeing in some children's books (with the cardboard red and blue glasses). It was (almost) void of any visble and distracting misaligned blue and red images.

However, I strongly believe the trick is quite similar since when I looked at the glasses from an angle, I saw traces of very thin red and green films in the lenses. In addition, I think the glasses also have polarizing qualities which separate the images and allow only one set of images to be seen by each eye.

Anyway, the only problem I had with the glasses is that they don't fit very well and kept on sliding down my nose. My son held on to his glasses to keep them in place, but he eventually took them off about two-thirds of the way through the movie.

Text on the sticker reads:

Warning: For in-theatre movie-viewing only.

Glasses do NOT block sunlight. Outdoor use

may be hazardous.

---ANTI-THEFT TAG INSTALLED---

Dolby and the double-D are registered trademarks

of Dolby Laboratories, Inc. Patents Pending

But generally, it was great fun seeing the show pop out of the screen.

As for the movie Ice Age 3... well, much of the characters' comedic antics were really funny (especially Sid and the saber-toothed squirrels Scrat and Scratte). But the story... hmmm...

Three-and-a-half stars out of five.