Not Quite an E-Ticket ‘Ride’

“Thrill Ride: The Science of Fun,” opening Friday, isn’t quite the white-knuckle adventure its promoters claim. Yet it’s exciting--even without being in 3-D, as you might expect from an Imax movie of this kind.

The large-format Imax picture recounts the history of roller coasters, beginning in 18th century Russia with sleds and wood-framed ice slides, and traces the technological evolution through the latest versions. At the same time, it blends information with experience.

The 2-D movie “Thrill Ride” doesn’t only document the twists and turns with archival illustrations and rare film footage of the earliest rides or explain the gravitational dynamics of roller coasters with table-top demonstrations--all of which is fascinating. It also takes you on the rides and, what is more intriguing, into the computer-generated hyper-reality of simulated rides designed for pilot- and astronaut-training, as well as for the entertainment industry.

Naturally a movie about thrill rides that asks, “What is a roller coaster but the promise of pure sensation?” demands to be made in 3-D--especially when its motto is “fear is fun” and its tongue-in-cheek safety warnings remind you to keep your hands and feet inside the theater.

But once you’ve accepted the disappointment that “Thrill Ride” won’t be taking you over the top into 3-D free-fall, you may find yourself feeling grateful. The tamer 2-D format minimizes the chance you might do what astronauts have been known to do in the NASA motion simulator (or as it’s been dubbed, the LRV, for Lunch Review Vehicle).

(The real reason the picture wasn’t made in 3-D, director Ben Stassen says, is that he combined new footage with recent footage of thrill rides already shot in 2-D. “Jumping back and forth from 2-D to 3-D would have been too disturbing,” he explains.)

“Thrill Ride” incorporates excerpts from 13 ride films, including “Superstition” (featuring Elvira), “Secrets of the Lost Temple,” “Asteroid Adventure,” “Back to the Future: The Ride,” “This Is Cinerama” and extensive portions of Stassen’s own “The Devil’s Mine Ride” (featuring Paul Harper), a live-action film brilliantly enhanced by computer graphics imagery.

Revealing sequences in “Thrill Ride” show how computer designs make use of scientific principles of gravity and kinetic forces to create seemingly impossible rides of uncanny precision dressed out in elaborate, even supernatural environments.

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Still, the most entertaining footage has nothing to do with the physics of gravity or any of the live-action views shot from amusement-park thrill rides.

It’s a storytelling scene made possible by computer technology, in which the old coal miner from “The Devil’s Mine Ride” appears backstage and doubles as another geezer, his look-alike brother, to demonstrate the clever ventriloquism of Hollywood sound designs.

Although “Thrill Ride” does not match the visual impact or the natural beauty of “Into the Deep,” which takes an astonishing 3-D dive to the bottom of the sea, it nonetheless ranks among the best Imax documentaries this viewer has seen.

BE THERE

“Thrill Ride: The Science of Fun” (G), at Edwards 21 Megaplex, Irvine Spectrum, 65 Fortune, (714) 450-4900. Also at Edwards Ontario 22, 4900 E. 4th St., Ontario. (909) 476-1500.