Last Modified: Friday, May 20, 2011 at 7:34 p.m.
SARASOTA - When it comes to movie houses, IMAX theaters are renowned for being the biggest — the "max" if you will when it comes to the size of the screen and the intensity of the experience.
And now, Sarasota is home to its own IMAX theater, though it seems the "max" was left out of the equation.
For "Pirates of the Caribbean" fans who attended the debut of Sarasota's first IMAX theater on Friday, the latest adventures of Jack Sparrow played out on a stage roughly the same size of a conventional movie screen.
At 28 feet tall by 52 feet wide, the AMC Sarasota 12 IMAX screen in Westfield Sarasota Square Mall is a far cry from the monsters that dominate the the IMAX Corporation brand name and command premium prices.
From the massive 62 foot high by 82 foot wide National Naval Aviation Museum screen in Pensacola, to the world's-largest venue in Sidney, Australia — a whopping 96.5 feet tall by 117 feet wide — IMAX was originally renowned as cinema on steroids.
But as it makes inroads into the multiplex market, the Canadian company is downsizing. And Sarasota fans attending the latest adventures of Johnny Depp's seafaring rogue, "On Stranger Tides," were accepting of the smaller portions.
"We saw the huge screen at Disney, and this one was nothing like that," said Jennifer Grobes of DeBary as she left the Friday matinee. "But it was still pretty good. You feel like you're immersed in the movie."
