Judith Allen runs down the pros and cons of adding ‘in-seat’ theme park effects to the cinemagoing experience:

I find myself now living near the UK’s first 4DX cinema in Milton Keynes. I went to see Ant-Man to try it out.

The effects were actually turned on during the Mission:Impossible Rogue Nation trailer beforehand, which worked quite nicely to acclimatise everyone to it and get the ‘surprised’ shrieking over and done with before the feature. However, the intensity of a trailer became quite overwhelming, with the motion effects struggling to keep up as we went from one action shot to another… and the effect of the pads in the seat actually beating you up was quite unexpected

I wonder if the distancing effect of stereoscopic 3D will soon be be relegated/promoted to such ‘ride experiences’ only.

How well 4DX works is instructive for those working on 360º movies. I wonder if 360º will one day escape the ‘game’ or ‘ride’ classification.