Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away

Unlike Life of Pi, I got exactly what I was expecting from Worlds Away. I’ve been to a few Cirque shows, and they all, including this one, are fantastical and surreal. There is technically a plot in this movie, but as with their other shows I’ve seen, it’s a thinly veiled excuse to transport the audience from one set of tricks and performances to another. There is very little dialogue. There isn’t particularly a resolution. But that doesn’t matter – it’s about the journey, and the journey is wonderful.

I’m not sure how much of the content of the movie is actually new. It appears that they took elements from a lot of the shows that reside in Vegas and threw them into a movie-length collection. I have not seen any of the Vegas shows, so I don’t know. Some of the pieces have to be new, given the staging requirements, and even the recycled ones are shown from angles you’d never see from the audience.

This movie is very much what happens when James Cameron decides he wants to film Cirque, and this is not a bad thing.

In sum, going to this movie is a lot like going to a live Cirque show, but closer and a lot less expensive, and with angles and slow-mo that you can’t get live. Do see it in 3D if you can, though. If any movie deserves to be in 3D, this is it.

1. Les Miserables
2. The Avengers
3. The Hobbit
4. Wreck it Ralph
5. The Amazing Spiderman
6. Brave
7. The Cabin in the Woods
8. Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away
9. Looper
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
11. The Secret World of Arrietty
12. Argo
13. Skyfall
14. Cloud Atlas
15. The Dark Knight Rises
16. Men in Black 3
17. The Man With the Iron Fists
18. Prometheus
19. Hunger Games
20. The Lorax
21. Snow White and the Huntsman
22. Total Recall
23. Bourne Legacy
24. Mirror, Mirror
25. Life of Pi
26. Dark Shadows
27. John Carter