The Palms Theatres & IMAX — Local services in Waukee

I absolutely hate immersion-breaking experiences. So I almost always go to The Palms, when it's a movie I need to experience. The imax is so large (roughly 480,000 cubic ft. give or take due to varied floor elevation) that any sound from an audience dissipates before it is even able to hit a wall and come back to you. I appreciate this.

The imax has the largest screen in the midwest and utilizes laser projection. This means two things.

1. Imax projector = detail (you can see the pores and hairs on the actors faces)
2. Laser projection = the colors have enough contrast to look like real life and not like a screen (no faded colors due to the screen/canvas)

Among that, my favorite thing about the theater is the sound quality of their largest auditoriums. I'm not going to self proclaim myself as a serious Audiophile, but I am an appreciator of balanced sound. The highs are crisp, the lows can be felt, and the volume is tremendous w/o distortion - a reason why so many theaters aren't very loud in town - because their system just wasn't built for volume + clarity in mind. I hate loud sounds when it comes at the cost of distortion. Most of the time, subwoofers will even suck power away from the highs and mids, because the power supply isn't ample.

High fidelity sound is important, not just for clarity, but because the volume won't give you a headache. (no extra white noises - so it won't sound painful). You know it is loud, because you can feel it immerse your entire being, rather than break your eardrums.

Sound is well isolated - (I got to be part of the design process and saw a lot of steel. carefully segmented and placed. Theater penetrations were very strict for steel piping (sound reverberations and sound leaks) and the theater layouts were thought out carefully. It seems trivial, but these are details that could make or break an experience for someone like me. The contractors did a VERY...

I had really high expectations coming in for my first IMAX experience. But it'll be a toss up whether I come back again (as it takes me over an hour to get here). Keep reading:

Positives: the watching experience was PHENOMENAL! I saw Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and would come back again to finish the trilogy. Audio and visual was great. Reclining heated seats are awesome. Really easy to get tickets ahead of time if you're traveling from afar, with that said make sure you read the fine details.

Opportunities (Management, pay attention): the thing that made this a not-so-great experience was the movie basics of drinks, popcorn, and customer service. Popcorn was below average in my opinion...I'm not sure if it was old or what, but watching a movie at 6pm you'd think the popcorn would be decent (got a large and only ate a half of it between two people). Drink cups...in all my years of movie-going I've NEVER EVER had a cup fail on me. The lid broke on me and spilled on my seat about 20 mins before movie time...i went over to an employee and asked if I could get my seat cleaned off (I'll go into that later)...these cups are so cheaply made, they deform and the lids can't even stay on throughout the movie...I'm sure I could go without eating, but drinks are definitely an essential for movie going. Now the customer service...I had asked an employee to have my seat cleaned off 20 minutes before start time, and they went to 3 other people about the situation before anything was done. I asked a manager if they could get me another lid and they pointed me in the direction where they were staged (I work in customer service and that was awful lol).

If you're still reading, I would encourage you to give this place a try, but be cautious about the things...

TL;DR – Good value, great seats, sound, and picture. Few minor annoyances.

Picture – very sharp, no issues. Minor annoyance was the high gain screen with no vertical masking, which creates a dark gray on top/bottom where you want to be completely black. May be an imax limitation.

Sound – very crisp and impressive with Dolby 47.2. Cranked slightly too high, but it’s to be expected. Bass seemed slightly muddy, and audio had slight echo - could have been the specific film as opposed to audio system. Minor sound leak from adjacent theaters.

Seating – best I’ve ever encountered. Motorized headrest and recline was awesome, and prefer the sliding tray table, though the finish was a bit glossy and reflected from the screen. By design of the chairs, by the third day open you could already see it trapping popcorn and candy – so I envision proper cleaning may be a pain. Heated seats was nice, but really wish the LED would turn off when not in use. You will always see a blue or red LED from every chair throughout the movie, or it will appear to flicker in your peripheral as people move in their seats. Spacing for the seating is probably the least marketed, but best feature they offer. I couldn’t even see the row in front of me, it was great. Lots of personal space.

Exit sign light drove me crazy. I’m sure this is fire code restriction, and some states require green lighting (most distracting to our eyes, but that’s a good thing for their intended use), but it was so annoying I had to prop my coat up to block it. Will have to adjust my seating in the future just to avoid it (if possible). Hard to fault the theater on that…but hard to ignore.

Concessions – Pricey, but to be expected.

Cleanliness – Great. Brand new, so it’s not saying a...