AMC Hawthorn 12 — Attraction in Vernon Hills

Me and my sister went in today to see a movie called until dawn we went to go pay for it ourselves bye the self checkout and this ginger guy named Ryan choose to help us out without us asking him to do so, he then proceeded to assume that me and my sister were both students, (I'm 18 and my sisters is 20) then he asked for IDS and we told him that we didn't bring our IDS bc it's a MOVIE and not drugs or alcohol then he proceeded to tell us that we weren't allowed to go and watch the movie bc he didn't see our ids he did that completely out of spite bc we had seen him help out a group of 13 yo kids right before our eyes we told him okay then we walked away. Then we had looked up the age requirements to watch the movie and it was 15 both of me and my sister are way above that age and it's very obvious aswell. He did that to ruin our day because he was miserable and clealry looking for a problem me and my sister went back to self checkout and purchased our tickets without a problem. Which if an id was really necessary why were we fully able to go and purchase the tickets without an ID? Then we went to go upstairs and we got stoped but this lady named Mari. (We seen how Ryan went to go tell her to stop us and ask abt our ids and blankets that we had also brought with us) then after we seen that I confronted them both on what was very obvious and then they had turned it around on me for speaking abt the fact that's they let little kids go to watch those same movies all the time and then he got verbal with me yelling at me for their own mistakes that was obvious. Then we asked for a refund and Ryan was saying "it's the law" when we seen multiple little kids going to watch rated e movies aswell we have been going to these movies since we were 10 years old without a problem never an ID being brought up and Ryan has been the one to help us to watch those movies aswell when I was underage but now suddenly 2 over 18 yo girls go and it's a problem but the children isn't a problem? Ya okay. Both Ryan and Mari were both very plotting and did that on purpose never have u ever had this much trouble to watch a Literaly movie before oh and also we had offered to show Ryan our passport pictures since we had both had those saved to our camera roll but he denied it and said those wouldn't work but it showed our age date or birth and face he was very adamant about seeing our ID. I seriously cannot believe this movie theater for allowing this to go on, all of the workers that work there try to start problems with people for no reason at all when all we wanted to do was watch a movie. The last time we came here a staff member tried to fight my younger 13 yo sister and threatened to quit and jump over the counter to fight my sister because my sister asked to recieve the food she paid for and didn't recieve for 30 min she was waiting, this place is ghetto but hey. Atleat they'll allow 11 year old children to go watch those rated r...

Every AMC Theater has some sort of flaw. This one is it's cleanliness.

I understand that it can be difficult to properly clean a theater between screenings, especially when it's busy. However, I went to a 4PM show on a Wednesday.

I got to the theater at about 3:20PM. From the ticket counter to the concession stand to the theater itself, I counted two employees and three other patrons. I sat outside of theater twelve until I thought it was an appropriate time to get to my seat. From then until 3:50PM, not a single person was walking around. This indicated to me that this was not a busy time.

So imagine my surprise that when I got my seat that it had visibly dark, dirty spots. When I reached over the seat next to me, it was sticky. Lastly, there was some popcorn visible on the floor.

I'm not sure if this AMC only had two employees at the time, but it's incredibly off-putting to see a theater so empty be so unsanitary.

In addition to what was visible, I felt like the air quality was off. The air was heavy as if the HVAC filters haven't been addressed in years. Also, unlike other AMC theaters, I just generally couldn't hear any air being pumped into the theater.

My last gripe with this place is the fact that, unlike every other movie theater, there are no signs indicating what movie is playing in what theater. Yes, I understand that your movie ticket says it, but it'd be nice to have it posted on the door as well. I noticed every theater had a digital sign above the door, but every sign was off. When I left my screening, an elderly couple asked me if I knew where Dolittle was playing. When I didn't know, they asked someone else who also didn't know. It makes for a confusing time.

PS, why are tickets here more expensive than other AMCs? I understand night time showings but I've seen movies that played on or before 4:00PM before and tickets were always...

I hadn't been to a movie theater in probably 2 years due to the pandemic of course. When this AMC theater opened, it felt pretty spectacular. Reserving reclining seats was new to me at the time, and I was blown away by the comfort, roominess, picture, audio etc. Taking an escalator up to the theater area was also kind of a cool touch. Now however, some of the sheen has worn off. The picture and sound are still incredible. The seats now though seem different. Maybe my memory is jumbling Regal, Marcus and AMC, but they feel closer together. And the seat didn't recline as far as I remember, and the recline button was this weird semi-touch, semi-mechanical button that was hard to find the sweet spot on. I also thought there was a heat option, but apparently not in theater 1 anyway. And the biggest issue with any theater is of course dealing with other people. I was lucky that there was no talking and no cell phone usage, but I drew the short straw with my neighbor. This guy took his shoes off and put his bare feet up on the ledge. Now I'm not a classy, snobby kind of person, so I got over the feet. But then he proceeds to eat his popcorn so loudly. Now he at least did chew with his mouth closed, except for the first bite. That first bite was a killer every time, over and over. He shoved as much as he could in his mouth, and then bit down like he was splitting wood letting the sawdust fly. There's nothing AMC can do about that of course, but it does make me want to hit the theater less. When I do go again, I'll be hoping for either a 1/2 full theater or one where there are gaps between sets of seats...