AMC The Parks At Arlington 18 — Attraction in Arlington

I use to come to this theater all the time back when I was working on my undergrad at UTA and was an awesome theater in 2013.

Been wanting to see the new Star Wars movie on IMAX and have the best movie experience possible (saw the last Star Wars movie at the Belt Line location and the experience is awesome and by far the best AMC I have been to). So drove 30 minutes one way to the closest IMAX, brought two IMAX tickets for $40, my girlfriend got popcorn and drinks for $25 (I know, awesome right?). Time wasted, $65 in, and excitement is building as the front of the theater and concession stand is as top notch as I remember it.

Now this is where the night goes down hill crashing fast. Walk in to the “IMAX” theater (yes, quotes are needed for it now) and the screen looks to be the normal size, but I wouldn’t know if this had the real “IMAX” power because the ten terrible minutes we sat there nothing was on the screen. We got to our seats and they look like the same seats for 2013 and only God knows what is all over them. Let’s say the seats we had selected where suppose to be red, but instead had a mixture of brown and white. Yes, I don’t know if I have the creative writing skills or anymore energy to describe how gross these seats are, but I’ll your mind wonder on how the seat might have gotten that gross. So we decided to find the cleanest possible seats and said to hell with the seats we selected. Movie starts at 720 and sat down to an empty theater at 720. We sat there for about 8 minutes in silence in our still questionable seats looking at a blank screen of nothingness for a movie that should have started 8 minutes ago. So I am $40 in for what is a not on time normal theater experience from 2013. So $45 for no leather seats, no reclining lounger, sticky floors, popcorn all over the floor and no need to keep the movie time on schedule. Now nothing wrong with all of that, if I paid $20 for two tickets.

After my 8 minutes of what this AMC is swinging as the “IMAX” experience, I decided it was time to call it quits from all the “IMAX” fun. I just couldn’t handle anymore or I might have lost it and ruined my whole night. So asked for a refund and just went to the near by Rave that’s 5 minutes away from my home. Rave costed me $30 for everything including popcorn, drinks, got the nice recliners, clean seats and theater.

I didn’t mind paying $45 for tickets and I would have covered the $25 on popcorn, but give out a $45 experience and let’s update the theaters like everyone else has and charge that amount. Hopefully AMC understands why people don’t go to the movies and this is why streaming services...

This was the worst movie theater experience of my entire life. I mean why even have an armed security guard if they don’t patrol for theater hoppers? There was a group of 8 teenagers who actively walked in and out of our showing Spider-Man No Way Home (in theater 10) no less than SEVEN times in the 2.5 hour run time. Sometimes it just seemed to run and giggle in the hallway and almost immediately come back. Other times they’d be gone for 10 minutes coming back with their slurped refilled for the third time. But the worst of it was that they found the light switch. THE LIGHT SWITCH!!!!!!! Good grief I didn’t think theaters still had those accessible to the guests! It’s got a lock on it, why is it not locked?! These hooligans turned the freaking lights on THREE TIMES. Each time almost demonically waiting for the most emotional scenes in the film to turn them on and take a theater packed with people completely out of it. They were actively misbehaving, but none of us did anything we just let it happen. It would have been obvious to security to see what was happening. I know at the end of the day “people suck” and that’s not totally AMC’s fault, but I ask again why even have an security guard if they aren’t gonna do anything but stand there. The mall is place for miscreants and I will make a point to not come back unless it’s literally my only choice my plan Z. The appetizer leading up this unfortunate entree was 4 of the 8 soda machines were “locked, please enter passcode” and the ones that were working, didn’t have any ice. And of course like everyone else says, the place is trashy and the seats are uncomfortable, but I knew that going in, it’s been like that for 10+ years. That’s why this was my plan C tonight and never have I been so disappointed to not try harder to make my plans A or B work. This was worst experience I’ve had watching a movie, and I’ve been to the dollar theater, where a mother let her 4 year old daughter walk up and down the stairs SCREAMING and crying for 12 minutes straight, she was in her seat without a care and her child was alone and afraid. I would rather have THAT happen again than undergo this insanely intentional rudeness of teenagers and the neglect of AMC security and staff to allow this to happen. I am one of the last big advocates for movie theaters, and today I was shook when I thought, “I should have just waited for streaming”. The movie is amazing, that’s my only...

We were pretty disappointed in our experience at the Parks At Arlington 18 location. However, I will start with the good. The Dolby digital experience is fantastic and is definitely my favorite way to watch a movie. I also appreciated the rule that kids under 18 are not allowed in the theatre without adult supervision after a certain time. Because of this, nobody talked during the movie and there were no distractions.

Now for the bad.

The first thing we noticed upon ordering concessions was that the concession attendant was talking on the phone to someone via airpod while taking our order. To be honest, I don't really care about that sort of thing as long as the concessions are up to standards. Unfortunately, they were not. We got a Large Popcorn and a large drink and noticed that the popcorn was stale like it had been sitting out for a few hours (She did not scoop it from the machine and instead handed us a bag that was sitting under a warmer so who knows how long it had been sitting). Then, we went to fill our drink and realized that literally 75% of the options were unavailable. Once we did find something that would suffice, there were no straws anywhere to be found. Whatever, we paid over 20 bucks for stale popcorn and a drink with no straw but not a huge deal.

Then we get into the theatre. Immediately we noticed it was hot and stuffy like the A/C was not working properly, it must have been a solid 78 degrees inside BEFORE the theatre filled up with other people. I was literally sweating in my seat. We found or seats that showed visible signs of wear and tear, there was popcorn and candy still spewn across the seat, and sticky residue inside of the cupholder. I heard 1 other couple complaining about the unsanitary condition on the way to sit down, and another two couples that came in after us complained as well. The entire theatre felt unclean and it certainly wasn't just us that felt this way.

It was pretty hard to look past all of this, especially the temperature (which did not start to go down until the movie was halfway over) and honestly, we were pretty disappointed in the entire experience. If you're going to charge nearly $75 for two people to see a movie the experience should be much, much better.

I'm not sure if anything can be done for me such as a refund or issued credits; but boy ya'll gotta do something to fix the...