It's not a gimmick, it increases immersiveness when done right. The problem is the technology isn't quite there and directors haven't been trained in it (and usually don't make the effort) - so it's basically never done right.
3D as we know it is probably never going to happen. Most movies don't gain much from more immersiveness, and the tech may always be clunky. I've seen some VR movies lately, and I predict they will supercede 3d entirely. Whether they'll end up being the next fad is an open question.
There's a huge difference between immersiveness (you feel surrounded by the image) and presence. Good modern VR gives you a sense of presence, which tricks the body at a level below conscious awareness that you are somewhere else.
And presence is characterized by lack of nausea.
If your only experience with VR is cell phones or the Playstation 4, then you probably have never experienced presence.
Yeah, if you want to experience presence you basically have to use a Vive - a Rift might just about do it but you'll probably run into a whole lotta tracking issues thanks to their (awful) tracking solution.
Wow, even HN has been infected! JK, but Rift tracking is great too. For "room-scale" with good tracking you basically need 3 sensors (you can buy additional sensors). For some games that cause heavy occlusion due to needing to lie on the floor or whatever, you would have to put the sensors in ceiling mounts to get the full volume tracked accurately. And the tracking volume will be smaller for the Rift compared to the Vive, but very few people have a bigger than 2.5m by 2.5m space, which the Rift can track just fine.
I just got my third sensor a couple days ago, and it has made a night and day difference (there is also an option for 360 tracking with two sensors, but I didn't set that up). But even when I had two sensors the tracking was fine except under certain situations where my body would occlude the controllers. Not a problem anymore after the third sensor.
Anything that's 3D animated IMO, your pixar or dreamworks kinda stuff - they all work far better than camera-3D stuff as the '3D gimmick' fits with the fact that it's animated, as well as the nature of 3D CG allows for the stereoscopy to be tweaked and perfected far easier.
Doctor Strange is, but unfortunately at least in my town it's only showing in 2D at the cheap ($1) theaters now. I was blown away by the appropriate use of 3D and visuals in 3D IMAX for that movie. I saw Rogue One in 2D and then IMAX 3D and hated it in 3D.
Ohhhhhh. I saw Dr Strange in 2D and thought the rippling building effects and hurling of bodies and such was kind of goofy. Didn't think of 3D at the time, but now it makes sense.
Dredd was fantastic in 3d, but it was 90-95% 2d, only exploding to 3d for dramatic effect, particularly in the slo-mo scenes and some of the other set pieces.
Obviously, that doesn't help very much since it isn't in cinemas.
I saw Gravity in 3D and strongly hated it. One scene in particular killed it for me. In what should have been an emotional scene when the hero looses all hope and sheds a tear. The tear floats into 3D space and the camera changes focus from the distraught hero to the tear drop instead. So, the audience is taken from what should be an emotional scene to admiring a fucking tear drop floating in 3D space.
3D as we know it is probably never going to happen. Most movies don't gain much from more immersiveness, and the tech may always be clunky. I've seen some VR movies lately, and I predict they will supercede 3d entirely. Whether they'll end up being the next fad is an open question.