Many people now choose to wait a few months and buy a movie to OWN on blu-ray. It's cheaper than the AMC Southpoint, and can often even look and sound better. $40 to take my wife and two kids to substandard movie theater is unacceptable. To make matters worse, the management recently made "bargain Tuesday" only applicable during matinee hours (which now end at 3pm!!), and got rid of "student discount tickets". And theater owners wonder why business is slow...?
Sadly, Southpoint is one of the best quality theaters in the triangle, so maybe they're unaware of how to operate a quality cinema (or just don't care). Even though this theater has relatively new projection equipment, there are often focus and sound problems. Sometimes I can hear the movie next door better than the one right in front of me, the sound is so bad.
Temperature control means nothing to the management. It's almost always freezing cold or boiling hot.
The garbage bins are overflowing, the bathrooms are usually out of soap, and many of the seats squeak so loud it'll make your teeth rattle.
The IMAX screen and sound is nice. It's about a year old, and many of the seats are already in need of repair, so select your chair carefully. The quality of their IMAX theater is about what you'd expect at the average non-IMAX cinema in LA or NY. Definitely worth the $10 or $13. Not the $15.50 this AMC likes to charge.
It's just not good enough. If it was, I'd gladly spend the money. Unfortunately I just keep getting disappointed, looking forward to the day when a worthwhile theater may take it's place.
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