Hollywood A-list director Mark Pellington (
The Mothman Prophecies,
Arlington Road) and newcomer Catherine Owens team up to break new cinematic ground by co-helming U2: 3D - the first three-dimensional concert film in movie history. The effort intercuts footage culled from several U2 shows on their 2005-6 Vertigo tour in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, Argentina, with
Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. performing before rapt audiences. The picture opens with several thematically-light rock songs, such as "Beautiful Day" and "Vertigo," but soon segues into more politically conscious material at the hands of social change advocate
Bono and his bandmates, such as the numbers "Bullet the Blue Sky," "Love and Peace or Else," and "Sunday Bloody Sunday"; at one critical point, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is projected high above the audience and group members read it aloud. Pellington, Owens, and cinematographers Tom Krueger and Peter Anderson make frequent use of a roving camera and multilayered 3-D effects; they also step away from the approach utilized in the band's previous concert film, U2: Rattle and Hum, by omitting interviews and focusing exclusively on concert footage. The full version of U2: 3D runs 80 minutes; a 56-minute "preview" version ran out of competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide