Village claim this is how you will feel when you ‘enjoy’ a movie at their cinemas :
.
This is what it is actually like :
We were supposed to be seeing and listening to Road to Perdition at Village Sunshine.
Apparently this is the same Village Sunshine where ‘all theatres have the latest technology with Dolby Digital Sound. Large capacity auditoriums with stadium seating and wall to wall mega screens.’
Okay. The sound – the first half of the first reel was in some form of surround (maybe DDS) and then it began to splutter in and out before finally settling on a lifeless stereo mix. After The Important Bit At The Start That Sets Up The Rest Of The Movie I went searching and found a worker bee who happened to be standing next to someone who appeared to be in charge. I pointed out the problem and the Guy Who Appeared In Charge told Worker Bee Boy to run upstairs and turn the volume up. What a solution – make it louder and no will notice the difference.
This really gets to me – we each pay $13.50 for a ticket, then god forbid you should be thirsty ’cause that will set you back $4.40 for a bottle of water you can get for $1.00 just across the road – and I’ve refused to buy food/sweets at a cinema for so long now I couldn’t even guess how many times you’d have to mortgage your house to get a small popcorn. We then have to sit through twenty minutes of ads before even getting to the start of the movie and then they can’t even be bothered screening it properly.
I’ll stop now before I start on dull projection, the seat that was broken when I sat in it and the mysterious square of light dead bang in the middle of the screen for most of the last reel.
Please Village stop treating your customers with such contempt. I love the movies, I love going to the movies but you’ll lose me if you keep this up. Maybe you should keep in mind that for the price of two adult tickets I can purchase the DVD and I know at home the sound and vision will be right. Or I can wait to see it at The Astor, a place that cares about movies. They have more people working at a one screen cinema than Village appeared to have at their 17 screen ‘megaplex’ and what’s more The Astor has a truly large screen.
(btw, really liked the film)