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‘U2 3D’ ***

It takes a seriously pretentious band to maximize the digital IMAX 3-D format. U2 is that band. And while “U2 3D” doesn’t rank with “Stop Making Sense” or “The Last Waltz” in the realm of top-shelf concert films, it’s enjoyable and a fine fat eyeful. Bono’s sunglasses alone justify the visual showcase.

The U2 “Vertigo” tour was large to begin with. Co-directors Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington and crew shot 100-plus hours of footage, as Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. returned to immense South American venues for the first time in nearly a decade. In Buenos Aires, where much of the “U2 3D” footage was shot, the crowd (and a good-looking crowd it is) delivers unto Bono the sort of mass rapture historically reserved for Eva Peron.

How 3-D is it all? Enough to satisfy your “wow/cool” needs, but not so gimmicky as to exhaust your patience or compete visually with the band’s anthemic favorites. When Bono stretches an arm out to the crowd, it’s right there in your face. A close-up of Mullen’s drum set makes the drum set look like a UFO from another planet. Still, no one throws anything directly at the camera. In that regard “U2 3D” is neither “House of Wax” nor “Beowulf.”

A lot of what we see in the film was not, in fact, photographed during the concerts. The majority of the footage depicting Bono and the gang onstage in close-up was filmed during a “cameras only” show prior to the Buenos Aires performances. It’s edited to look as organic and seamless as possible, which I suppose is cheating. But the whole 3-D effect, which is hard not to like, is a matter of cheating reality — blowing it up, heightening the “realness” of it all.

The neatest effects in “U2 3D” are simple ones. The wow/coolness of watching a revered superstar tilt his mic stand toward the camera creates a simple but irresistible feeling of being there in the flesh, with a phalanx of expensive digital 3-D cameras. It’s “Whoa! Duck!” but tastefully restrained as these projects go. And it’s a good time.

MPAA rating: G.

Running time: 1:25.

Opening: Wednesday at the Navy Pier IMAX Theatre.

Starring: Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.

Directed by: Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington; photographed by Tom Krueger; 3-D photography by Peter Anderson; edited by Olivier Wicki; produced by Owens, John Modell, Jon Shapiro and Peter Shapiro. A National Geographic Entertainment release.

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mjphillips@tribune.com