Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen @ Defunct IMAX Theatre, Berjaya Times Square

Hello readers!

I don't really blog a lot but here goes. Last night, 23rd June 2009, 2000hrs GMT+8 Malaysian time, I managed to watch Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) at the former IMAX Theatre in Berjaya Times Square. Yup, for those of you not in the know, Malaysians can no longer claim to have an IMAX theatre. So let me enlighten you about that first.

Around May, I started to feel the Transformers fever, so I decided, what better place to catch ROTF than in an IMAX theatre, rite? And our beloved Malaysia happens to have 1 such theatre in the heart of the Golden Triangle in Kuala Lumpur. As "gempaq" as the IMAX theatre is, it never did have an online booking system (despite it being owned by DiGi? hmm) so we had to call to book the tickets.

When I called them up, they told me that this is a "2D show sir, not 3D", to which I said "Fine, no problem". Definitely, there are no 3D versions of ROTF out there. But she also used the words, IMAX closed already, which got me thinking.."What? No IMAX?" Since my lovely wife and I had yet to confirm the number of people we wanted to watch the movie with, and with my having doubts about there still being an IMAX theatre to go to, we put off buying any tickets on that day.

The Friday that week, I did go to Berjaya Times Sq (BTS) and (wow, 10th floor really is far up if you walked all the way from KLCC to BTS!) as I was arriving at the cinema, the signs weren't good. I didn't see many people hanging around there, there wasn't a single IMAX written anywhere, be it on the walls or on the posters, and sure enough, right above the ticket counter, the words IMAX were also removed. There was a comparatively small "Pawagam" wording instead. What pawagam? I have no idea.

Upon chatting with the ticket-seller, I discovered that the IMAX contract had ended in Sept. 2008 and was not renewed (she didn't know why). Curiousity got the better of me, so I still went ahead and bought 8 tickets for ROTF on the 23rd of June. I realised, I may get disappointed come 23rd, but I just had to know whether the cinema is still worth going to, or whether we should just leave the old 'relic' alone. As a small bonus/compensation rather, depends on how you look at it, I got 8 vouchers for free Coca-Cola from the snack bar!

And came the 23rd did. There was a good crowd, but not as many as during the IMAX era. As we entered the cinema, it was still as awesomely huge as it was before, that has not changed. They started showing some trailers but the picture was somewhat squashed, and the audio quality was not great! It was like watching a very big video presentation but with tiny sound. The audio could be heard from the front and the rear but not necessarily from the sides. In short, no immersion. The bass was good though. I hoped that when the feature presentation was played back, it would be different. Unfortunately, only the video got bigger (so yes, I saw Optimus real huge like) but the audio quality was still the same lame thing. Having said that, though the video was huge, it was perhaps a bit blurry. Perhaps it is the result of projecting the video presentation onto a surface larger than intended? To understand what I mean, try playing back an average quality Youtube clip in full screen. Doesn't look so sharp now, does it? Then multiply that by a 5 storey sized screen and you can imagine what we experienced that night.

To summarize: It is simply NOT worth paying RM11 for an "overstretched" movie with muffled, non-immersive audio, especially when we have 1 GSC theatre just couple of floors downstairs in the same building!


Oops..have to blog about the movie later then... ;) thanks for reading!