The Jonas Brothers, left to right, Nick, Joe and Kevin, perform for their fans in Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. The Jonas Brothers, left to right, Nick, Joe and Kevin, perform for their fans in Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. (Disney Enterprises)

A lot of stuff gets thrown at you in Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience: Nick Jonas’ guitar pick, Joe Jonas’s tambourine, as well as drumsticks, microphones, sunglasses and other pop accoutrements. The goal is to make you jump back in your seat.

The Jonas Brothers have zero charisma off-stage, as we observe in scenes where they traipse around Manhattan pursued by frenzied fans, clearly echoing The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night.

Whether you’ll recoil from the Jonas Brothers themselves probably depends on your age and gender. As a middle-aged male, I know I’m not the target demographic for heart-stopping songs like Video Girl or BB Good (Sample lyric: “You gotta be, be good to me/I’m gonna be, be good to you/We’ll be happy as can be/You gotta be, be good to me, baby!”). Although it runs for just 70 minutes, the film seemed longer than Titanic to me.

But judging from the tweener response at the advance screening I attended, you’d think director Bruce Hendricks had just made the greatest film of all time, the Citizen Kane of boy-band concert movies. This was joy distilled; I’ve never seen an audience enjoy a movie quite so much: girls screaming, clapping, singing along to these teenage grand operas. Yep, the film is pretty much like being at an actual Jonas Brothers gig, except when the lads pump their fists to get the crowd going, you’re afraid they might bop you in the face.

In case you’re not up to speed in the Jeopardy! category “Boy Bands of the Early 21st Century,” the Jonas Brothers (“Jo Bros” to hardcore devotees) are the Backstreet Boys of our time, a cutie-pie juggernaut that starred in last year’s Disney Channel hit movie, Camp Rock. (Note to self: Must resist urge to point out the title’s unintentional irony.) After the recent success of Miley Cyrus’s 3D theatrical release — also directed by Hendricks — it was inevitable that her Disney pals would also get the multi-dimensional treatment.

They certainly didn’t scrimp on cameras. The concert footage was shot during the 2008 Burnin’ Up tour in New York and Anaheim, Calif., and it’s a state-of-the-art, high-tech spectacle. The Jonas boys spend much of their time elevated on retractable pillars; no place for vertigo sufferers. Unlike a lot of teen dreams, the brothers can play their own instruments, an impressive feat when you’re hovering precariously 50 feet above hordes of screaming girls. It’s just that these pop-rock tunes are so generic; none of their work approaches the modest levels of hummability created by forefathers like N*Sync or New Kids on the Block.

Nick, left, Kevin, centre, and Joe escape their squealing fans in Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. Nick, left, Kevin, centre, and Joe escape their squealing fans in Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. (Sam Emerson/Disney Enterprises)

In interviews, Joe (the cute one), Nick (the cute younger one) and Kevin (the older one, who seems most likely to suffer from male pattern baldness) are quite genial and well mannered — basically what you’d expect from Disney teen idols. But they have zero charisma off-stage, as we observe in scenes where they traipse around Manhattan pursued by frenzied fans, clearly echoing The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night. As the Jonases move from TV interview to hotel room to an album launch event at the Times Square Virgin megastore, you really get no sense of what they think about their super-sized fame. Are they amused by it? Frightened by it? Worried it could all end tomorrow? If they have an opinion, they aren’t saying. Instead, the brothers operate like automatons, fulfilling all of their obligations without ever questioning their good fortune.

In one of these hotel room moments, we see the Jonases watching some archival footage of The Beatles on TV. It’s Feb. 7, 1964, and the Fabs have just landed at JFK Airport. They’re doing a news conference, making irreverent comments about their talent, their shelf life and basically seducing the assembled media. The contrast with the Jonas brothers is painfully clear: the members of that original boy band had three-dimensional personalities. Sadly, this year’s model seems to require 3-D technology to make an impression.

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience opens Feb. 27.

Greig Dymond writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.