The foremost question viewers will probably find themselves asking before putting on their special glasses and settling in to watch U2 3-D"" is: ""Who is the intended audience for this movie?""
If you have never been to a U2 concert, are not a U2 fan or just find that sunglasses-at-night-wearing, globetrotting, world-saving force of nature and frontman of the world's biggest rock band, Bono, to be extremely obnoxious, then you might be surprised by ""U2 3-D.""
Initially, you won't find anything in this film to contradict that perception. It opens with grainy footage of excited fans flooding the gates to get into the gigantic arena. Over this footage, a series of voices lets the audience know exactly who this film is for: ""Everyone,"" they say repeatedly.
Then U2 - dressed like late '90s snowboarding enthusiasts projected in 3-D - launch into ""Vertigo,"" that iPod commercial song you tried to get out of your head. Then, Bono leans into the 3-D camera, and you can count every stubbly hair on his face as he yells ""Yeah yeah yeah yeah!"" just as it was mercilessly parodied on ""South Park"" last year.
At this point, U2 haters have been given plenty of ammo, and the sermonizing band never stops its unfashionably earnest behavior throughout the concert (""Love and Peace or Else!"", a recent song title screams). At one point, Bono is handed a headband from the crowd with Jewish, Christian and Muslim symbols on it, which inspires him to improve the coda to ""Sunday Bloody Sunday"" by calling Jesus, Muhammad and Jews all sons of Abraham, all part of the same global family.
But a funny thing happens as the concert goes on. Somehow, all of the familiar hits (""With or Without You,"" ""Where the Streets Have No Name"" and ""New Year's Day"") become more energizing, life-affirming and transcendent in this context, while the music washes over spectators in magnificent stadium stereo, and a crowd of thousands in Buenos Aires jumps up and down, singing with arms outstretched, crying and hugging each other with excitement.
Bono and his bandmates (the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.) are impeccable musicians and give off the kind of mighty passion only comparable to such live performance luminaries as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
However, the show's defining moment is a quieter one: Bono - alone under the spotlight on a portion of the stage that juts out into the sea of spectators - gives a stirring rendition of the lesser-known single ""Miss Sarajevo,"" culminating as he fills in for the recently deceased Luciano Pavarotti on the song's concluding opera solo.
The man who sings rock 'n' roll and fights AIDs and poverty has opera in him as well, and the Argentinean crowd erupts in rapturous applause.
As the song concludes, a reading of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights plays across those enormous screens, and with a thunderclap of drums and ringing guitar, they launch into their tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., ""Pride (In the Name of Love).""
This is U2 in 3-D. They claim it's for everyone.
