AMC New Brunswick 18 — Attraction in New Brunswick

There should really be an option for zero or negative ratings for such places.

I came here for a 5 pm show of Sonic 2 with my family today. My 8 and 10 year old boys were in a spirited mood and were running around in front of the concession stand. Then an African American lady who works here as a manager (couldn't get her name since this all happened so fast) came out of nowhere and started screaming at my children to stop running. I ignored her behavior since my kids were indeed running around and continued to wait in the popcorn line. Then my kids went up to a candy stand nearby and started excitedly pointing and pulling at the candies. None of the candies fell on the floor or no mess was made. Then this same lady came up to me and began to charge me with why I am not disciplining my children. I replied that I didn't see the need to since they had not done anything that required my intervention. To which she started raising her voice and started lecturing me on good parenting. I was also getting aggravated and told her that I didn't need any lectures on the matter from her. Then she said that I can't watch the movie and asked me to get a refund. I asked her to call her manager and she replied that she was the manager and very rudely replied that the buck stops at her. She categorically told us to get out of her theater and that there was no way we were watching a movie there. Seeing all of this my children started getting traumatized and started apologizing profusely and asking me to leave the theater. Eventually the theater manager Phil came there to have a word with us separately. I told Phil very firmly that I needed an apology from the lady for such unwarranted behavior. Phil apologized to us instead and said that he would review the video cameras to see what happened. I replied that I would be escalating this to AMC corporate. But I am also reporting this here since such incidences require all the visibility that...

I usually go to AMC theaters but haven't been to this particular one in years. It's clearly declined in that time.

The place was surprisingly packed with moviegoers but there were only a small handful of employees working, most of whom were curt (although I don't blame them because they had to process so many people with so little staff). Customer service booth staff and ticket takers both kept going MIA. There were huge lines for concessions, which were overpriced and bad. Popcorn tasted like cardboard with no flavor, and the fountain drinks are those awful synthetic flavored sodas.

The tile/laminate floors near concessions were grossly dirty. They were so sticky that customers' shoes were suctioning to the floor. The carpeted areas in theaters and hallways were covered in popcorn bits. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned for at least the entire day. The theater smelled like farts, which makes me think it wasn't cleaned any time recently either. I didn't venture into a restroom there because I had no faith it would be clean.

The theater had a nice big screen, but the seats were incredibly narrow and uncomfortable. Myself and another person in my party both had backaches the following day due to the discomfort. The narrow spacing between rows meant that anyone entering/leaving in your row was basically stepping on you and anyone shifting in their seat behind you was kicking the back of your chair.

Also, the cup holders built into the seat were the wrong size for the closed caption readers, making the movie inaccessible for those with hearing issues. (Ironically, one of the reasons we picked this theater was because it was supposed to be accessible!)

It was such a terrible experience that reminded me why I prefer staying at home to watch movies instead of spending $20 to have a bad time and not be able to hear the movie...

UPDATE now that I've gone again: Still terrible! For a 10:30am Sunday showing (with SEVERAL movies all starting at that time), they opened the doors at 10:15am, and had ONE person checking tickets. For people trying to buy or print tickets, at least one of the ticket kiosks didn't have paper, but there were no signs, so people were buying tickets, then having to get refunds when they could not get their tickets, adding to the line. They didn't turn on the house lights in our theater (IMAX for Oppenheimer, the only theater nearby showing it in IMAX, which is the only reason I came here again), so everyone was having to turn on their phone flashlights to be able to find their seats- this was after telling the one person taking tickets and he calling over radio that people needed the houselights turned on. This theater is so much worse than others nearby that it feels like the manager has just given up.

Original review: This location doesn't open until 10:55 on Sundays - yesterday, there were 5 movies with 11:00 or 11:10 showtimes, but they didn't open the doors until 10:55, which meant that people were still sitting down halfway through the trailers, which started on time. Also, that meant more than 100 people were trying to get through the two employees checking tickets all at once - not great to have that kind of crowding. A woman waiting outside said this has been a regular thing since the new manager took over. The bathrooms also clearly had not been cleaned since the night before - most the soaps were empty, and the floors were sticky before the first showing. I'll be switching to the Monmouth Mall location for my movies...