28 Years Later: The Bone Temple: The ScreenX Review

One Cinema Format After Another

Whenever my wife and I go to watch a movie together, lately we’ve tended to pick a theatre close to where we live called 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku, located in the new Kabukicho Tower. There are reclining seats with little side tables, you get free popcorn in a chill lounge when you arrive and the supposedly best-in-Japan sound system was hand-tuned by the late music legend Ryuichi Sakamoto. What’s not to like?

But when we went to see 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple last week, we realized it was only showing in the auditorium dedicated to ScreenX, a fairly new format that has been picking up some steam of late, particularly here in Asia. I’d heard of it before but hadn’t ever seen it for myself, so I was happy to check it out in the spirit of technological open-mindedness.

The “X” in “ScreenX” appears to stand for “expanded” or “extended”, because ultimately what you get is three screens in one. You’re mostly just watching a regular 2D movie screen in front of you, but the footage spills onto the sides of the theater for a 270-degree view.