Nightmare Before Christmas 3D, The

Nightmare Before Christmas 3D, The

It strikes me as most transparent that the re-emergence of 3D films comes at a time when box-office receipts are plummeting, at a time when people are increasingly building up their plush home theatre systems, or turning to the ‘net to download films or spend a few hours on youtube instead of going to a sticky-floored cinema to spend a few hours in a room with total strangers, at least a few of which will no doubt interfere with your viewing experience with their annoyingly loud chattering/mobile phone ring-tones/popcorn-munching. After all, 3D was first introduced as a gimmick to get people back into cinemas after the invention of a little something called the television. Does that mean we are set for another era of cinema novelties? Are we to see the return of Smell-O-Vision? We can only hope.

At the same time folks like Peter Jackson, George Lucas, and especially James Cameron truly believe 3D is the future of cinema. Not gimmicky kid’s cartoon 3D, but realistic non-goofy-glasses 3D that will suck you into a movie like never before. Nightmare Before Christmas 3D doesn’t exactly affirm your belief that that one day 3D might have progressed to that level, but it’s still far superior to anything I have seen before. Or rather I say the shorts before the feature and the 3D Disney logo are far superior to any 3D I have seen before. They are simply amazing. Nightmare however was not made for 3D, and you can tell. It isn’t eye-popping but it’s still pretty cool. It just feels like they have separated the foregrounds and backgrounds and very occasionally something flies at the screen and gives you a bit of a jolt, but nothing too impressive.

Still, do you really want two hours of shit flying at the screen? Is that the way new 3D films are heading? No story but loads of explosions and car crashes and…okay, so just Michael Bay in 3D really. (ZING!) If that’s what you’re expecting, you may have to wait a few years but in the meantime if you’re just after an enhanced version of a brilliant animated modern classic, then go and embrace this cinematic re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas and try not to hum along.