LOOK Cinemas Redlands — Attraction in Redlands

I've been coming here for several years, ever since it was known as Studio Movie Grill. Ever since they changed to Look Cinemas I have experienced a few minor issues. My most recent issue unfortunately was the last straw for me, and I don't plan on returning. My most recent experience: I booked a ticket in person for Wicked on 11/16 for the 11/27 showing. I received my printed ticket and receipt. I arrive on 11/27 about 20 minutes prior to my show time since I like to order food and get settled. I showed the woman my printed ticket, and she informed me they were still cleaning that room and asked that I wait about 10 minutes. I move to the side and wait. Later she informs me the room is ready. When I walk in they are just wheeling away the garbage cans and the screen on the outside of the theater is blank. I go to my seat and am the first in the theater. There are no ads/previews rolling. It is now past my printed showtime and nothing. I decide to check the website to make sure I didn't get the time wrong. Slowly people start to trickle in. A pair enter my row and seem confused as to why I am seated. I show them my ticket to confirm I am sitting in the correct seat. They were about to leave to inquire but since the seat next to me was empty, I offered to move to allow them to sit together. The trailers start about 33 minutes after the expected start time. After the trailers, the movie starts playing and I realize Moana 2 is playing instead of Wicked. At this point, I'm thinking this explains the start time but it seems futile to get up and look for where Wicked is playing if I already missed the first 45 minutes. Plus, my food had already been served. Since I did have interest in seeing Moana 2, I decide to stay since I already paid for the ticket. While I'm watching, I am perplexed since I am fairly sure I walked into the theater number that was printed on my ticket. However, it was very possible I was mistaken in which case I had no one to blame but myself, so I go along with it. After the movie ends, I exit the room to find out if I somehow got the wrong screen or even the wrong date or even bought the wrong movie. When I exited I triple checked and concluded I in fact did show up on the correct date, correct time, correct screen, & correct seat as was printed on my ticket when I purchased on 11/16. Therefore, it seems some time between when I purchased and the date of the movie showing, the room assignments were changed. I have never experienced anything like this before. It seems logical to me that if you are changing screen assignments, you should look to see if seats have already been purchased. And if this is the case, you should attempt to inform the customers. Another potential point in which this could have been caught sooner was the woman checking my ticket.

Past experiences: After ordering food, the website used to give a message stating if you don't close your tab out 30 min after the movie ends, you would be charged 20% gratuity. I once received a text from my credit card way before the movie ended stating my tab was closed and was charged. That was upsetting since I am not one to pull my phone out in the middle of a movie. Nor do I think the theater should expect people to pull out their phones 30 minutes before a movie ends to complete this task (if this was what was meant by the verbiage). Ever since then, I close my tab out immediately after ordering. When they first became LOOK, I remember tap water only costing $0.01. Now it costs $2 for the same tap water. This seems excessive. I've noticed the last few visits that several seats have very noticeable wear and tear. The seats are in need of TLC or replacing altogether. It doesn't give the theater a nice appearance. Several seats are also missing QR codes for ordering food but there's not a way to know that ahead of time when booking the ticket.

I've given this place many chances. The only redeeming quality is that the staff are nice. However, I will now be taking my...

Where to begin… I have been a fan of Look theater in Redlands since they opened. Over the last 2 years I have patiently accepted the extremely slow service, unprofessionalism, run down seats, etc. and simply hoped things would eventually improve. That being said, I am SOOO Done with that movie theater. The way it is managed and run is an absolute joke and Harkins, which is only a few miles away, provides a much more professional and enjoyable experience.

Let me explain my recent decision. On Saturday afternoon, August 31, I watched The Roses with 3 of my friends. We attempted to purchase a drink at the bar prior to the movie, but were strongly discouraged by the bar tender and asked we order from our seats since “he was the only one serving drinks”. Oddly enough, the parking lot was completely dead and there were only 1 or 2 customers seated at the bar. We agreed, and ordered from our seats. Sadly we waited 45 minutes for our drinks to be served. My order was incorrect, so I decided not to wait for a server, so I walked up front (missing part of the movie) and explained that I received a sparkling drink instead of a Chardonnay. No apology from the bartender, no review to determine if I was overcharged, nothing. She just poured some type of Chardonnay and didn’t even ask which type I had ordered.

Ok, now to last night. On Wed, September 3, I purchased a ticket for the 5:00 showing of Weapons. It’s a thriller, mystery. After the previews ended, everyone expected the lights to turn off. Nope, not in Theater 13. After 25 minutes, I once again had to miss part of the movie to walk up front. The only person there was the bar tender. I told him what was happening and he said “I will see if I can get someone to fix it”. The movie ended after another 1 1/2 hours and the lights were still on. I walked next door to theater 14 and observed that everyone was able to enjoy their movie because their lights were off.

I decided to ask for the manager. After waiting 5-10 minutes, a very young female arrived and asked how she could help me. I started with “I really want Look theater to succeed”. I told her that I was going to remain calm and I just wanted to let her know that I was frustrated. I started by explaining what happened on Saturday, August 31. No real response, she just kind of smiled and nodded her head. Then I explained what happened that evening with the lights staying on during the entire movie and she responded with “oh yeah, the lights are broken in theater 13, it’s been like that for a few weeks. The General Manager has been notified, but they haven’t been fixed yet”. I asked her why the bartender didn’t tell me or go to theater 13 and let everyone know and she responded “Oh, Eric (I think that was his name) didn’t know the lights are broken in theater 13”. She then ended by asking me “How else can I help you?”. Really???? A responsible manager would have owned the situation, been sincere, and would have offered some type of option or solution to make the situation right vs. placaiding me. On a side note, I used the restroom at 7:00 pm and they were filthy, long dark hairs in the sink, paper and water everywhere. And, at the same time, 3 young male employees were sitting at a high top in the bar area talking, laughing, texting. Why isn’t anyone managing this place or simply working? It’s...

We were a big fan of SMG before it closed and were very excited to come back to LOOK Cinema. Went the 2nd night it was opened. The staff was very friendly and helpful (most are the old staff from SMG). A few hiccups in the new rollout, though. Had a few problems with the new menu app unexpectedly closing in the middle of our food order. Don't like having to navigate back to the main menu for each new food type. When the drinks came, one of them was the wrong item and we couldn't re-activate the QR code in the dark. We didn't know you could also tap the QR code to activate the app (that wasn't indicated as an option as far as we could see). But we flagged down a staff member who showed us the tap feature and got us a new drink, but this time the drink was watery. Decided to live with that. We had been a big fan of the original SMG burger, but that was no longer on the menu. Now its two slider burgers, so we tried them and unfortunately the quality was much less than before. It tasted like a fast food patty. Also ordered the new chicken wrap, which was quite good. The only other negative was that no napkins were included with the food delivery, which seems like a no brainer - especially with staff that worked the theater before. So definitely some kinks to work out with the menu and service. Will review again in a few weeks when they have it all worked out.

UPDATE: Went back to LOOK Cinema for first night of Jungle Cruise. TIP: if you want to order food but don't have a smart phone, you can order at the bar and they will bring it to the theater. Also be aware that until they have their alcohol license, not all adult drinks on the menu are available.

We ordered from our seats about 20 minutes before showtime. This is a criticism of the third party app, buy the food ordering app is still a bit hard to navigate - the main menu is a side-swipe menu that is not immediately obvious (and it is small and in a darker font - that's my web developer pet peeve). After ordering, the food arrived about 15 minutes later - enough time to have a few bites before the show started. This time, the drinks were correct, they did provide napkins (although only one for each person). I ordered the Italian pizza, which was very good and plenty to share. My wife ordered the quesadilla with chips. It was a little overcooked, but very tasty. The serving size is smaller than the same item was at SMG, but still big enough for a healthy appetite. Overall a much better and pleasant experience. The staff and servers are all VERY friendly and helpful. As a result, I'm updating the review to 4 stars.

One other note in regard to the slider burgers I ordered on the first visit: the photo on the current menu shows three sliders but the served item contains only two sliders. LOOK Cinema should update the photo to match what they are...