After spending nearly three hours watching Odysseus struggle to get home, some The Odyssey viewers are leaving the theater feeling like they made the journey with him.
That is partly because they watched it in 4DX, a format that rocks the seats with the ships and adds wind, water, fog, and other physical effects to the movie. Videos from screenings are now spreading online and convincing other viewers that IMAX may not be the only way to experience Christopher Nolan’s epic.
Though some moviegoers call the experience "torture", the videos are generating plenty of interest from people who now want to try it themselves. The fascination adds another option to an already unusually complicated question surrounding the film: Which format should audiences choose?
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Nolan filmed the movie entirely with IMAX cameras, and screenings in the much scarcer IMAX 70mm format sold out months before its release. Only 41 theaters worldwide are equipped to present it that way, leaving many fans to choose among digital IMAX, standard 70mm, Dolby Cinema, and other premium formats.
4DX presents a different proposition. Instead of expanding the image or emphasizing its visual detail, it brings parts of the movie into the auditorium. Literally.
What is 4DX?
Created by South Korean entertainment company CJ 4DPLEX in 2009, 4DX uses motorized seats and environmental effects synchronized with onscreen action.
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The seats can tilt forward and backward, turn from side to side, rise, fall, shake, and vibrate. Depending on the movie and theater, viewers can also encounter wind, water, fog, smoke, scents, flashing lights, simulated snow, and bursts of air near their heads. Some seats contain a device that pushes into a viewer’s back during onscreen impacts.
For anyone concerned about getting sprayed, 4DX seats generally include a button that allows viewers to turn off their individual water effect. The movement, however, is part of the experience — whether you like it or not.
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Those effects are not automatically generated while the movie plays. CJ 4DPLEX employees spend weeks programming them, sometimes working frame by frame to coordinate each movement, vibration, and environmental cue with the film. The finished instructions are then distributed to 4DX theaters.
"If the seats are moving the entire two hours of a film, I don’t think it really takes advantage of what 4DX is," CJ 4DPLEX executive Paul Kim previously told Variety. "We want to make sure that it’s the right scene and we want to make sure that it makes sense when we use particular effects."
The Odyssey gives programmers plenty to work with. Storms bring wind and water into the auditorium, ships make the seats rock with the waves, and arrows trigger bursts of air beside viewers’ heads. Smoke and fog effects match what’s happening onscreen, while fight scenes produce sharper movements and physical jolts. And it’s packing theaters to capacity.
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What viewers are saying about The Odyssey in 4DX
After sifting through Reddit threads (r/RegalUnlimited, r/TheOdysseyMovie, r/ChristopherNolan) and reactions elsewhere on social media, the response from people who attended 4DX screenings was mostly positive.
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According to people who attended screenings, the effects are concentrated around the movie’s larger set pieces rather than running continuously throughout its nearly 3-hour runtime. That gave audiences time to recover between storms, battles, and rough stretches at sea.
One Reddit user whose local Regal theater had recently installed 4DX reported that nearly every available effect kicked in during the movie—smoke, wind, air bursts, and plenty of water included. The seats rocked through boat sequences and jerked during fights and sudden action scenes.
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"There’s a certain part of the movie near the end where the seats went absolutely wild,” the user wrote. Although they did not consider it the most intense 4DX presentation they had experienced, they said the effects complemented this particular movie.
Other attendees emphasized that the seats did not move during every conversation. One user said the pauses between action sequences kept the extended runtime from becoming exhausting.
"Totally worth doing," they wrote, "especially during the boat scenes."
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Many are leaving the theater inspired. One viewer said it reinforced their determination to "fight for my life just like everyone on the ship did," while another called their 4DX viewing the "wildest cinema experience ever." A TikTok creator even posted that her entire theater erupted into a standing ovation after her 4DX showing.
But not everyone came away convinced. One viewer on Reddit said the effects became an "annoyance" outside a few rough-sea sequences and complained that the final fight "absolutely wrecked my back." Another asked for a refund after experiencing "ZERO effects other than seats moving," suggesting that the experience can also vary depending on the theater and which equipment is working.
A TikTok video with 5 million views shows the creator warning viewers: "whatever you do, DO NOT watch The Odyssey in 4DX!!!"
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Fans of the format consider much of that physical discomfort part of the price of admission: a Reddit commenter compared 4DX with a theme-park attraction, but wanted to experience "the wind, the rain, the mist, and wet popcorn" anyway.
That leaves viewers with another option to experience the movie with the toughest ticket on the market: you can always catch the 6 a.m. showing to see IMAX 70mm present the full scale and detail of the images Nolan captured on film. Or try 4DX for the chance to rock through a thunderstorm with Odysseus — and hope the lid stays on your drink.
