Billed as a new Cinerama-like theatrical format, creating wider images by stitching together three-screens mounted on the front and side walls of a movie theater, the Barco Escape experience is as advertised. It’s an immersive movie-going assault on the senses – and that’s a good thing – that maximizes the ambitious action sequences and epic digital environments featured in STAR TREK BEYOND.
The BEYOND Barco presentation opened with Bad Robot producer Ben Rosenblatt appearing on screen to explain what the audience was about to see. There was an audible gasp from my fellow moviegoers as the two screens on the left and right lit up with imagery as he explained that parts of the film would feature expanded footage encapsulating three times the normal screen space.
The BEYOND Barco Escape production includes “only” twenty minutes of expanded screen coverage. When I first heard this going into the showing, I thought, “That’s all?” But anyone who sits through the two-hour film and sees the presentation seamlessly alter between one and three screens (sometimes in rapid-fire succession during complex action sequences) will not leave the theater thinking “only twenty minutes.”
In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that most viewers would tell you that more than half the movie featured the expanded format. It sure felt that way.
The very first shots of the film feature the Barco Escape technology, with the Enterprise orbiting above the planet Teenax. The moving camera and overhead angle are disorienting for a split second as you get your bearings for the first time watching the ship move across three screens.
The impact (and promise) of the new format is felt almost immediately (and perhaps most majestically) in the spectacular, tumbling shots of the Yorktown Station that soon follow. Already one of the most impressive visuals in STAR TREK BEYOND, the special effects that brought Yorktown Station to life are now even more inspiring.
The massive, twisting skyscapes branch in every direction through the theater, and the glorious shot of the Enterprise gliding into the station underwater now covers 180 degrees of the audience sight-line, following the ship from one screen on your right as it moves all the way around the theater to your left.
The amazing Barco spectacle also encompasses the film’s two major space battles, with Krall’s Swarm ships taking over every conceivable line of vision as they envelop the Enterprise early in the film and then surround the Yorktown Station in the climax before the ships are obliterated in a fiery chain-reaction explosion that might just leave you covering your eyes.
As the film unfolded, the one scene that I was starting to anticipate in full Barco glory that never materialized was Kirk’s motorcycle rescue of his crew. Perhaps the visuals were too complex for the extremely compressed timeline required to get this print into theaters, but it was disappointing not to have those tricky effects displayed across three screens. It would have been fun to see an expanded presentation of Jaylah’s quick-hardening amber smoke being kicked up by that old PX-70 motorcycle.
Overall, though, the Barco Escape format is something fans will definitely want to experience if they have an opportunity, especially for those who are planning to see the film more than once and in multiple formats.
To find the nearest Barco Escape equipped theater, visit www.ready2escape.com.