For a long time concert tour films were seen as a cash-in. Ask a music fan for their favorite, and they’ll probably answer with something that isn’t really a concert film at all, such as Madonna’s deliciously gloves-off documentary Truth or Dare or Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme’s high-concept performance art classic starring Talking Heads.

But in recent years the concert film has become a bona fide cinematic event for super-fans wishing to relive the experience as well as those who draw the line at paying a month’s rent to see their favorite musician. In 2023, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour became the genre’s biggest-grossing film of all time, taking over $250m at the global box office. (Swift herself took home an estimated third of that figure thanks to an exclusive distribution deal with AMC Theaters). Beyoncé’s Renaissance film extended her album as a cultural moment, while this year Baz Luhrmann’s Epic: Elvis Presley in Concert has packed out multiplexes and a concert documentary from the K-pop boyband Stray Kids topped the global box office.

Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour in 3D is the biggest and most anticipated concert film since Swift’s: a reported $20m production co-directed by James Cameron and Eilish and billed as “reinventing the concert experience”. Cameron and his team filmed Eilish’s tour over four nights in Manchester, UK, last summer with 17 cameras strategically hidden around the singer’s stark, minimal stage, which is erected in the center of arenas. Without any of the dancers, costume changes or moveable set pieces of her A-list pop peers, Eilish’s show rests on her undeniable onstage magnetism and the near-religious devotion of her fans. The new film gives you more than a front-row seat to the show: it plunges you into the arena, swooping from the cheap seats to up close by Eilish’s side. But the technical wizardry largely feels like the emperor’s new clothes in a film that hits the familiar beats of every straight-to-DVD concert movie out there.

When Cameron and Eilish stray beyond that, Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour in 3D can dazzle. At the beginning of her show, a white cube glows in midair before turning transparent to reveal Eilish inside. After the song ends, the movie runs it back to show how the moment came to life from the singer’s point of view via a camera intricately rigged inside the fake-out floating platforms and a moment where Eilish folds herself into a crate and is secretly transported to the stage. A shot from the singer’s perspective while she is wheeled across the arena floor is the most memorable in the film: Swift should have done the same from her Eras Tour cleaning cart.

The crowd explodes into a frenzy for Bad Guy, as the singer pogos around and picks up a handheld camera to shoot herself and fans in fish-eye that bursts from the screen. During the pounding Over Now edit of L’Amour de Ma Vie, she majestically rises above the audience, singing in near-assaultive Auto-Tune while bathed in devil red lighting. Her thunderous 2021 song Happier Than Ever is accompanied by blinding strobes and camerawork that whizzes around Eilish and special guest Finneas as if it were a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.

The film sags during the subtler moments of the setlist, which is a problem when half of it is composed of ballads performed at a mic stand or while lying on the floor. I will freely admit to not being particularly fond of Cameron’s recent work, but I couldn’t help wishing for a Na’vi to swoop from the rafters on a tetrapod to liven things up. And while it’s a trip to see Eilish bounding across the stage in 3D, the technology only seems to be capable of making people in the foreground look normal. There was something uncanny about the backup singers, who moved as if they were in The Sims. The technology also can’t quite immersively render the show’s lasers, which leaves Guess feeling slightly flat. I wondered what the point of 3D technology is if it doesn’t make you feel like lasers are flooding your face.

Eilish’s pyrotechnic moments on stage are peppered with off-book backstage moments that show the singer hugging rescue puppies, doing vocal warm-ups and joking around with her team. “You are the architect of this show,” Cameron informs Eilish reverently, in one of a few fawning moments where Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour in 3D would have benefited from a little distance from its subject. (The impact of What Was I Made For? is nearly undone by the on-the-nose choice to have it follow an interview with Eilish about body image: the song has never sounded more like it is from the Barbie soundtrack.)

When there is little happening on stage, the film over-relies on shots of fans singing along, or, most often, racked with heaving sobs. I found myself wishing that Cameron had teamed up with an artist like Lady Gaga or Sabrina Carpenter, whose extravagant world-building on recent tours had the theatrical oomph to deserve the extra dimension.

Eilish’s music connects with audiences powerfully, as the rare artist that gets plaudits from teens as much as industry gatekeepers (at 24 years old, she has 10 Grammy awards). The film is interspersed with interviews and earnest testimonials from fans about how Eilish’s music guided them through tough times, or helped them embrace who they are. Cameron and Eilish aren’t focused on exploring why her particular mix of ballsiness and introspection has resonated so deeply with millions. That would have made for a fascinating follow-up to RJ Cutler’s exceptional documentary on Eilish instead of this splashy style experiment.

• Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour in 3D is out in cinemas on 7 May