Prepare to be AMAZED when "U2 3D" debuts in limited release in January. Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton have created something special with their second feature-length concert film. But this isn't just another vanity project like "Rattle & Hum."

I was able to see an early screening of this the other night and I, along with everyone else in the screening room, was floored. With all due respect to "The Song Remains the Same," "Stop Making Sense," "Woodstock" and even the superb "Gimme Shelter," "U2 3D" takes the concert film to a different plane of filmmaking.

The technology used to make this is truly breakthrough, the 3-D technology totally immerses you. It doesn't just feel like a gimmick that you notice only in a few scenes in the movie. It captivates you from the opening scenes. The cameras zoom, pan and push in and out as the band tears through a set list of mostly classic songs. By the end of the movie you get used to the 3D, but only until another great camera angle pops up and makes you feel like you have a front row seat. On the stage. And Bono's singing to you, and only YOU.

It helps that the subject of this film is one of the great rock bands of all time. The one-two punch of "Vertigo" and "Beautiful Day" that opens the film is so pulse-poundingly exciting, it was all I could do to keep from singing along with the stadium crowd. The sheer energy of the concert is palpable.

Speaking of that crowd, I've been to a couple hundred shows in my lifetime, including five U2 concerts. I have never, EVER, experienced a crowd as passionate as the South American crowds you see in this movie. The sheer joy in the audience is infectious and when Bono says at the end that the band "will never forget this", you believe it. I would hate to be in the crowd of the next concert film that's made because once you see this, you will feel woefully inadequate as a rock fan.

In the past, concert movies have aimed to make you wish you were there. "U2 3D" makes you believe you ARE THERE.