Review: U2 3D

Fifteen tunes by Irish band U2 fill eighty-five minutes of G-rated rock on an I-Max screen “4,500 times bigger than the average television screen,” hypes a pre-film factoid projected by the Navy Pier venue. Backed by National Geographic Entertainment, directors Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington (“The Mothman Prophecies”) assemble a rousing, if traditional concert film from “Vertigo” tour stops in Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Santiago and Buenos Aires. With ten numbers played on stage only for the cameras, that makes for a seamless set with no cultural context—a disconnect from the National Geographic’s mission since 1888 to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge.” An overhead night shot of a crowd waving blue-screen cell phones recalls a deep-sea species of bio-luminescent organisms, but a jagged sequence of rabid fans sprinting through stadium corridors to get to the outdoor stage recalls the fleet-footed zombies of “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later.” The 3-D effect adds more artifice than you-are-there realism. Designers nicely translate the deconstructive themes of Bono’s lyrics by cascading colored letters that look like they’re inside the theater between you and the screen. During “The Flym” the visual text is less edgy than it was in U2’s “Zoo TV” tour, where banks of video monitors pulsed messages like “Everything You Know Is Wrong” and “Watch More TV.” This time the message is “We Are The Acceptors” and “They Are The Givers.” Which could be the band’s way of saying to its audience we accept the adulation you give when you buy a ticket. Tunes include “Pride (In the Name of Love),” “New Year’s Day,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “With or Without You,” “Beautiful Day,” “Vertigo,” “Yahweh.” 92m. (Bill Stamets)