"Everest" (General) IMAX Theatre, Parnell Street, Dublin

Ireland's first IMAX theatre - located in the same complex as Virgin Cinemas - is an impressive auditorium featuring a massive screen and perfect digital sound. The sheer scale of the screen is evident from the beginning, when the censor's certificate appears like a postage stamp in the centre of it.

The theatre's distinctive features are amply demonstrated by its opening presentation, Everest, a visually spectacular 44-minute documentary of a hazardous 1996 expedition which follows the route taken by Sir Edmund Hillery and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

Liam Neeson narrates this striking audio-visual experience which testifies to the sheer daring and endurance of the climbers, one of whom is Tenzing Norgay's son. As they made their ascent the team attempted to save the members of another expedition which went fatally wrong.

The sense of danger and adventure is heightened by the breathtaking camerawork, which contains some footage shot from truly vertiginous angles. Anyone with a fear of heights may well flinch as the young Spanish climber, Araceli Segarra, negotiates her way across a ladder that is stretched high above an alarmingly steep crevasse.

Another sequence features a helicopter rescue carried out at over 20,000 feet - where the blades have nothing to bite into. The expedition itself was clearly made all the more difficult by the necessary encumbrance of the large IMAX camera, which is dexterously handled by the film's director, cinematographer and expedition leader, David Breashears, here making his third ascent to the summit of Everest.

The state-of-the-art sound system is never more effective than in capturing the shuddering roar of an avalanche. The original score by Steve Wood and Daniel May echoes James Horner's Titanic soundtrack in its grandness and use of uilleann pipes and tin whistles, and it is interspersed with some familiar George Harrison compositions.

Everest is showing daily at the IMAX in Dublin, alternating in the schedule with the underwater documentary, The Living Sea, narrated by Meryl Streep.

There are now 125 films in the IMAX library and the Dublin venue will change programme every two to three months. Later we can expect the feature-length concert movie, The Rolling Stones Live at the Max; Jean-Jacques Annaud's short narrative feature, Wings of Courage, starring Val Kilmer; and some eye-popping examples of the IMAX 3-D movies.