It’s an incredibly impressive showcase of film formats that forces itself into the history of cinema by merely existing, and looks stunning doing it.
It vacillates between smartly satirical and egregiously full of itself, and in its worst moments can’t help but feel like what it is: a low budget film on high budget cameras — really nice, shiny gift wrapping on a shoddily put-together wooden box. 
In its best moments, though, it feels like a group of friends making a low budget film on high budget cameras, and isn’t that always the dream? It’s really nice, shiny gift wrapping on a shoddily put-together wooden box, but sometimes there’s a chocolate bar inside.
Some stronger performances and a better script (or by what I learned from the QnA any script) would have done a lot to turn Chapter 51 from a tech showcase into the cinematic achievement it believes itself to be.
I’m glad I saw this in IMAX when I had likely my one chance to, because honestly, if this were to play on any kind of standardized digital screen, I don’t know what the draw would be to watch it.

It’s an incredibly impressive showcase of film formats that forces itself into the history of cinema by merely existing, and looks stunning doing it.
It vacillates between smartly satirical and egregiously full of itself, and in its worst moments can’t help but feel like what it is: a low budget film on high budget cameras — really nice, shiny gift wrapping on a shoddily put-together wooden box. 
In its best moments, though, it feels like a group of friends making a low budget film on high budget cameras, and isn’t that always the dream? It’s really nice, shiny gift wrapping on a shoddily put-together wooden box, but sometimes there’s a chocolate bar inside.
Some stronger performances and a better script (or by what I learned from the QnA any script) would have done a lot to turn Chapter 51 from a tech showcase into the cinematic achievement it believes itself to be.
I’m glad I saw this in IMAX when I had likely my one chance to, because honestly, if this were to play on any kind of standardized digital screen, I don’t know what the draw would be to watch it.