Regal Barkley Village — Local services in Bellingham

I'm generally not the type to complain about anything... but no matter how excited I am to see a movie beforehand, I always leave this theater needing a fistful of Tylenol and wanting to punch out the projectionist.

Cons: As per usual with any Regal theater, "overpriced" is an understatement. The usual theater beef. These morons seem to believe that they have a right to search their customers; THEY DON'T, and it's actually illegal for them to do so without clearly-posted signage explicitly indicating that such searches are a requirement for patronage. For anyone who might see this, please know that you have a legal right to refuse - and you absolutely should. They may try to cite some BS about it being "for safety reasons," but A) it's not illegal to bring otherwise legal weapons into a theater of this size anyway, including the legal carrying of a concealed firearm (which I do, myself), B) they could neither confiscate nor ask you to remove any such weapons from the premises even if they found some, and C) it's really just a ploy to allow them to search your belongings for outside snacks or drinks. I seriously doubt that the service staff know what they're doing is illegal, so your best bet is to immediately ask to see a manager if you run into any trouble. Consistently TERRIBLE AUDIO in every single theater auditorium. Not only is the audio always far, far above dangerous volumes, but it's also driven well beyond the capability of the hardware; ultimately, it sounds like complete crap. There's so much clipping / distortion that only the mid-range can be considered tolerable, and even that is heavily contaminated with both signal and amplifier noise. I've seen over a dozen flicks here, and on every occasion I've had to deal with a headache and ringing ears for 12-24 hours afterward - and this is coming from somebody who stands between two 6-foot sound decks a couple of times a month and is used to having headphones and car stereo at well above "sensible" volume. Whoever's in charge of audio calibration is either asleep on the job or simply f*ing incompetent. Rather than pay $0.12 a pair for decent industry-standard disposable 3D glasses like every other arguably-decent theater on the planet, this one uses the ultra-cheapo types: barely-finished brittle plastic one-piece-frame junk, with sharp excess from the cheap molds hanging off of every edge and—best of all!—a field of view that would still be at least 20 degrees too narrow horizontally and almost as much vertically even IF the lens positions were even slightly adjustable. You'll find phenomenally better 3D glasses in any straight-to-disc film box from the reject bin at a dollar store. Seats are narrow and cramped. I'm thin and only 5'11", but I still feel like I'm always competing for elbow, shoulder and foot space - even when adjacent seats are empty.

Pros: The seats recline (a small amount), are decently cushioned, and have mostly-functional drink holders. It's the only "real" theater in the...

Barkley cinemas...tell me something.... From my experience......the reason a person would pre-purchase tickets to an upcoming movie on a different day, may be one or more of the following reasons:

To be sure you have a ticket for the day and time you want just in case it's a box-office HIT, and you want to have a seat if it sells out.

You have a life and a family to plan around, you need to find a babysitter for a SPECIFIC TIME, and need to plan ahead.

You're just a proactive person, and like to schedule and plan out your day.

Well, I'm all of the above. I have 2 little one's, and instead of bring them to a crowded movie and let them misbehave and cry, I schedule a babysitter. Sometimes this can be a difficult task, so it takes time and planning on everyone's part. So......we purchased tickets for a specific show, specific day, and specific time......we scheduled and secured a babysitter, got up early, dropped the kids, and go to the theater early to get our drinks and snacks and get settled in our seats before the crowd.

Excited for our break from the kids, and to have a couple hours of down time watching an awesome looking show, "San Andreas". HOWEVER, as we arrived, we noticed that our showtime wasn't on the list of showtimes outside, nor was it on the list hanging inside the building. What??? Upon checking with the ticket-taker, we found out that the showtimes had changed since buying our tickets and we could either pop into the show that was ALREADY IN PROGRESS......or we could wait for a later time! Really??? I'm pretty sure the babysitter didn't plan for this any more than we did, so needless to say we were a little HOT about it, and it was not at all what we planned on. Yeah, we got our money back, and have NO INTENTIONS of ever returning to your establishment. You have the monopoly in Whatcom County since you're now the only theater there is to choose from. But, in the future, if we choose to go out for a movie, it will certainly be elsewhere!!

I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ALLOW PEOPLE TO PRE-PURCHASE TICKETS, FULL OUT KNOWING THE TIMES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE......NOR DO I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU ALLOW THIS AND DON'T TELL THE PATRON THAT THIS IS POSSIBLE THE DAY THEY ARRIVE!! Had I known, I would've waited until the day of. You need to inform people, or completely REMOVE THIS OPTION!!

You have officially lost my business and I will be sure to tell everyone I know about what happened!!! What a joke!!! NEVER AGAIN!

Thanks for nothing but a big fat waste of time, Barkley Regal...

Had an issue with Fandango's page for the theater (Barkley's site takes you to it automatically) trying to get tickets for my family via a pass I won for Christmas, in not taking it, and when I went to the theater, the manager not only took it, but gave us an upgrade from the normal 3D to the IMAX 3D as a courtesy without even being asked. I'd have been more then happy with the tickets I wanted and the upgrade was completely unexpected, and deeply appreciated.

Having that happened I splurged quite a bit more then usual on food, and ordered a few of those Angus cheeseburgers for the group, which we never have tried before, plus the usual popcorn & drinks, if again, up-sized more then usual. 4 minutes is a bit annoying to wait through for the burgers when just standing there if only because there's nowhere to sit down in the lobby, but I'll say this much, those burgers were leagues better then a McD or BK burger. Considering there are several movies coming shortly I want to see, I'll be sure to order one of those before each film from now on.

In the review below me, the person known as 'J' obviously must have gone to a different theater, as I've never had a problem with how loud their volume is, and those 3D glasses are the same no matter what theater you go to (Regal Cinemas, Cineplex, or whatever), so he's full of it. That and obviously ignored the warning last week in the news, about how virtually all theaters in the area were doing searches because people had been injured due to overly enthusiastic Star Wars fans waving around toy-lightsabers and such (its kinda obvious which film he's referring to & whining about), plus a few that came in with slightly more realistic weapons then the staff are comfortable with.

pro-tip: if it looks like a real weapon, and you're waving it around, then yes, they most certainly DO have a right to search a group. I was down in Seattle at the Star Wars premier there and some idiot came in with a working airsoft rifle made to look like a blaster, so immediately thoughts went back to The Dark Knight Rise's shooting incident. After that incident, anything that looks like a weapon -will- be questioned, and I'd rather they search and find nothing, then not search and be stuck in a theater with a guy with mental issues and a...