CINEWORLD in Middlesbrough has opened a movie-going experience with added wind, water, motion and smells. Matt Westcott experienced 4DX for himself

AS far as revered film critic Mark Kermode is concerned, it probably signals the end of civilisation as we know it.

4DX, or 'extreme cinema' as its billed, makes 3D seem tame by comparison.

Middlesbrough's Cineworld multiplex has just unveiled this latest innovation in immersive movie-going experiences.

What you get for your £14.90 entry price - around £5 more than the regular cost of an adult ticket - is your average film, but projected onto a massive screen with added motion, wind, water and smells.

Actually, what we got was much more than your average film. Whether Avengers: Infinity War was made for 4DX or 4DX was made for it, the two are very comfortable bedfellows.

Comfortable is probably the wrong word though for an experience where the willing participant is thrown sideways, forwards, punched regularly without warning in the back and rained on. Add to that the odd gale and even snowfall and you can see why the aforementioned Mr Kermode was not chosen by Cineworld as the poster boy.

Alongside 3D, it certainly added an extra level of excitement and I would never decry it, especially at time when cinemas are having to work hard to innovate as people view more and more content on smartphones or via hi-tech televisions.

However, having sat with my fist clenched for almost all of the two-and-a-half hour thrill-fest that is AIW, as no one is calling it, how much of my enjoyment was down to the additional special effects is open to question.

For novelty value, 4DX certainly has its place. It's like watching a film while riding a roller coaster and just as you will probably visit a theme park once or twice a year, I could imagine going to the cinema two or three times over the same period for the kicks or should that be punches.

As far as the audience I sat with was concerned, the first hour of the movie saw plenty of whoops, shrieks and laughter, but by the middle of the second hour they appeared to have got used to the experience and the outbursts were confined largely to the action onscreen. From a personal perspective, a small part of me also began to resent a feeling akin to being sat on a crowded plane with a small child constantly booting your seat from behind.

Leaving the cinema, there was plenty of chatter about what we had all witnessed and, on many occasions, felt which bodes well for when it opens today.

But whether I witnessed the future of cinema or just a phase in an ever-evolving market place I don't know. Mr Kermode probably hopes and prays it's the latter - but I guess the audience and not the critics will be the true judges of that.