3D

I went to Athena Cinema for the very first time to see Final Destination in 3D tonight. I had heard a lot of talk recently about how many people were disappointed because they were expecting RealD instead of anaglyph when they went to see Ice Age 3. (I only recently found out that there were two technologies and the names for them :P...yes I can be ignorant in some areas) Anyway I didn't go there expecting things to come out of the screen, after all this is Maldives. Everything is too good to be true here.

And please don't judge me for going to see Final Destination because, I honestly thought they meant the first one. Yes I can be gullible as well sometimes. The first movie was the only decent one in my opinion. It had some clever and sinister twists and didn't quite feel like some lame teen flick like the rest of the films. Anyway I was mostly curious about this 3D thing.

Everyone was right; the paper glasses were too loose, the colors were in hues of reds and blues and it wasn't the ideal 3D experience one would imagine. There came only two scenes where I felt like I was actually in the movie. The part where a car came flying at the screen and some part where a piece of paper or a leaf kept floating about and I wanted to catch it. Other than that I felt like I had to keep straining my eyes to keep trying to see it in color and to 'induce' the 3D effect...whatever that means.

But frankly I wasn't that disappointed. At first when I sat down this bald dude in front of me with his gleaming cranium worried me a bit since the light reflecting on his head was outshining the screen. No disrespect intended of course, but luckily they turned off all the lights before they started. The movie sucked, so did the un-3Dness of it all. But the fact was that I knew well enough not to have raised my expectations when I heard Athena was going 3D. I mean come on...did you really think we'd have the Avatar experience here so soon? I have lived here long enough to know that things simply do not happen here. if it does it'd take ages..and by that time, it's considered old news.

But what really bothered me wasn't the anaglyph or the crappy movie. Tonight I found out that Maldivians would either never or would take eons to evolve into mature respectful human beings. The first thing that I noticed is that people would come in groups of 5-10 people and they'd take up an aisle sitting together. An exceptionally loud dude was sitting next to me and he would every now and then call over to his friend (who was named Tuesday or Sunday or something of the sort) who was way on the other side of me while yelling deafeningly in my ear oblivious to what he was putting me through. The rest of their gang also just kept yakking all the way through the movie. I kept missing parts of the conversation which made it difficult to follow the plot. Of course I'm not saying there should be pin-drop silence, but some people actually want to LISTEN to the dialogue too.

The other thing I observed is that Maldivians have a sad sense of humor. It's either that or they just feel the need to go "hahahaha" or chuckle in amusement even if there is nothing funny about the scene or what the actor said. It was like a laugh-track gone bad. And when the sex scene came up, every girl started giggling in a way that made me want to rip my ears off. Every guy just couldn't resist making some sleazy comment on it. GROW UP ALREADY! Haven't you seen enough of that by now? They are just boobs people. You'd think that people would have matured a bit by now.

No respect for other people and still as childish as ever. Yeap...we are still at the same place we were 20 years back. Maybe even worse. That's all I have to say about my first visit to Athena. If it weren't for the people constantly irritating me, I think I could have enjoyed the movie more. "Well at least" like my guy said, "there wasn't any body odor" Now that would have really ruined my night...

Take care y'all