ODEON Exeter — Attraction in Exeter

Purpose built for ODEON in the 1930s this is a beautiful historic cinema. Unfortunately, like most cinemas owned by big chains it is run to a standardised template across the whole portfolio (a very easily managed 100+ cinemas) rather than with any real concession to its' unique strengths and weaknesses. ODEON appears to be pursuing an overall strategy of maximising theoretical ticket turnover and minimising costs. We have only recently visited screen 1 (the main part of what used to be a single large auditorium). We found that the seats were not as comfortable as the competition but since many of them have their seat covers worn away to bare foam, perhaps they will be redesigned if and when the overdue refurbishment takes place. If they were to do so with an eye to the unique properties of the venue they could easily turn screen 1 into a premium cinema experience that outclasses anything else for some distance. As it is, the screen is smaller than it could be for the size of the room (possibly a concession to the projectors available decades ago when it was first chopped up?) and the actual projector is fine. Not great. Not substantially better than most modern home TVs once you've adjusted the settings and closed the curtains (especially as given the size and distance of the screen, from most seats it doesn't take up any more of your vision than a modern TV.) The picture manages to be slightly dimmer than it ideally should be whilst at the same time the uncovered portion of the screen is reflecting (a small amount) of white light to wash things out. Presumably they have decided that drawing the curtains over the unused portion of the screen to prevent this as they used to is too costly. As for why the picture doesn't consistently fill the vertical space of the undersized screen I am less sure. The sound is still better than most home film viewing experiences. It is still worse than other screens I've seen nearby and noticeably impairs the experience. The issue is partly due to the volume being too high for the speaker system they have (meaning that the center channel is boomy and distorted rendering speech harder to hear than it should be.) I suspect even at the correct volume for these speakers/amplifiers, the overall speech is probably not as clear as it should be, thus the logical but entirely wrong idea to turn it up louder.

Why 4 stars then? Overall, as much as we experienced it, the venue was clean and basically functional. The tiny level of interaction we had with the staff seemed fine. While there are lots of ways ODEON fails in making use of the potential of Exeter ODEON (some requiring huge financial investment, others requiring the cost of a couple of tickets per day and so an OBVIOUS good investment) they did successfully put a watchable and mostly audible film on. Despite this specific venue being far more suited to competing on quality (something it successfully did for years due to lucking into having lots of film geeks on staff) the thing ODEON is offering (that they seem to stamp onto all their venues) is to deliver an adequate cinema experience more cheaply than their rivals. Exeter ODEON absolutely delivers that. Anytime I'm willing to spend a small amount BUT ABSOLUTELY NO MORE to treat myself to a slightly better than home film experience I feel confident I will find that at this cinema for a low price. Any time I (or anyone else) wants to have the best cinema experience they can have and are willing to spend very slightly more than the bare minimum, I would definitely look at any of the other options within the city. Some offer less refined experiences but more interesting and unusual film options, others offer the same films as ODEON but with overall far nicer experiences across the board.

TLDR: ODEON Exeter offers the same films as other big chains but with a cheaper experience at a cheaper price. Go there if you want to see a film cheaply or just want to keep putting money in the till for it to survive long enough for the ODEON chain to refit it (hopefully with a focus...

I have not been to the cinema since 2003, so this was something to look forward to. We had been waiting to see ‘No time to die’ for a long time due to Covid and lock downs etc. My son very kindly bought tickets for myself, my daughter and himself to go and see the film on the afternoon of 16/10/21 at the Odeon in Exeter. Right from the word go when the ads came on, the volume was extremely loud. It got to the point where I was having to put my fingers in my ears to reduce the noise.The floor was vibrating under my feet, it was so loud. I told my children it was too loud, and then had a word with one of the staff to see it could be turned bit a degree. He said he would see what he could do. I said that if it stayed at that volume for the film, I would have to leave. The film came on and it was no different. It got to the point where Bond was at the grave of Vespa Lynd (about 12 minutes into the film) and it exploded. My eardrums nearly burst. I decided at that point that it was time to leave. I told my son and daughter (both adults) that I could no longer tolerate the high volume and left. I walked through the ticket area and explained the situation to the manager. He wasn’t prepared to do anything it and would not refund me which I felt would have been good customer care. As a result, I shall never go the Odeon in Exeter again (incidentally, this was my first visit) and I shall probably never go the cinema again. I shall have to wait for the film to come onto the television which could be in about 2 years or so. What a complete and utter waste of...

I went to see the new James Bond movie 'No Time To Die' last Saturday (9th Oct. '21).

After 30 minutes of being seated, (and this was just as the movie was about to start, with the previous 30 minutes being mainly adverts and a few trailers for upcoming movies), I started to feel uncomfortable in my seat and I had to try and slightly change position around every 15 minutes thereafter, all through the 2hr 43min movie, just so that my bum didn't ache.

Having previously been to the VUE cinema, it"s clear why the ODEON is cheaper. The ODEON need to update their seats with something more comfortable. The VUE's standard seating seems to be leather, have more leg room, the seats are even reclining and the arm rests are padded, unlike the ones at the ODEON, which are flat, hard moulded plastic armrests.

Also, for me, the screen was a little on the dull side and whilst the sound was generally plenty loud enough and the surround sound was decent, at times it was difficult to here the dialogue, especially of the main villain, who spoke only just above the level of whispering. That may be down to the sound levels of the movie itself, but nowhere near the greatest movie experience I've ever had.

I'm thinking of watching the same movie at the VUE this weekend to compare the sound AND picture quality, because when we it's hard to hear all of the dialogue, it is easy to miss something crucial to the story.

So, personally, I would suggest going to see movies elsewhere, even if you pay a little extra, but comfort, especially during a 2hr 43min film, for...