This is going to be a long one, so please bear with me. TLDR at the end.
Backstory: I was initially disappointed that Scotiabank IMAX bumped Alien from their launch. Waited another week hoping they'd eventually give it some showtimes, only to find out it wasn't getting any and The Crow was going in after Deadpool's extended run.
My options were:
see it at Scotiabank in UltraAVX, which would be letterboxed and not the full 1.90 aspect ratio
Drive to Mississauga to see it in their IMAX on the weekend, but the showtime would be 4:30, which I don't love because it's early and I dislike coming out of a movie and it still being daylight out.
Try out the Yonge & Dundas IMAX since it was the next closest imax and would be showing it in the full 1.90 aspect ratio. Which is the option I ended up picking.
So I got my ticket and went to Alien Romulus at the Yonge & Dundas IMAX and good God was it an all around truly awful experience.
First of all, the entire place was absolute chaos. Longest I've ever had to wait in line for concessions and the line was only 3 people ahead of me. Not only was the employee ridiculously slow at fulfilling orders, but the people in line kept having more and more friends/family cut ahead and join them at the front to place their order for them. So one person ahead of me turned into 15. The people there were just rude and pushy and loud, and just not the type of crowd I'm used to.
But that's beside the point, my real complaints started when I got into the cinema.
For starters, it's insane they claim this theatre is an IMAX, and thus charge the premium price for tickets to it. $26 for a screen the same size as a regular theatre is BS. I now get why people refer to it as a LIEMAX.
Secondly, and probably the worst of all, was that a massive portion of the screen is obscured by the rows ahead of you because of the awful layout. I chose what I thought would be a great seat. Middle section, middle of the row. A seat that would be ideal in literally any other theatre. Shocked to find out that's not the case here. The bottom third of the screen is entirely blocked by the front section of seats when you're in any row other than the back two and the front 5.
Noticing that my view was blocked I moved up to the front section during the trailers. A gamble because other people could have tickets to those seats, but I took the chance. I made the move during the trailers because I could tell this would be an issue once the movie started playing in the full 1.90 aspect ratio and it would be even worse.
Then once the movie started, the first 5 minutes was ruined because dozens of people sitting in those rows further back now realized their views were blocked and then all started loudly getting up and moving to the front section, too. It was incredibly distracting, but I knew how bad the view was and couldn't blame them.
However, now that I was sitting in the front section, 5 or so rows from the screen, I could now see all the pixels in the screen and it was very distracting. Any the text or graphics, in particular, looked terrible and aliased/pixilated.
The picture quality, in general, was very poor. Especially when comparing it to the dual laser imax at Scotiabank that I'm used to. On top of the pixilation, the image was both too dark and also blown out around the edges. Looked similar to if I was sitting a foot in front of a LED TV. Certainly not the IMAX quality I was expecting for the premium price tag.
To make matters worse, the sound was somehow even more awful than the picture quality. Terribly calibrated and whenever it got loud and basey all you could hear was the rattling and clunking of the auditorium walls/roof.
The cherry on top of this whole lack-luster viewing experience was the crowd. I have never, ever, in 30+ years of going to movies experienced a worse behaved crowd than this one. Large groups of teens intentionally talking loudly and laughing during quiet movements. Would then get hostile when anyone told them to be quiet. There was only 4 or 5 rows ahead of me, and even then I saw about a dozen phones coming out and being used during the film. One girl sat there scrolling instagram for 10 minutes with her phone on full brightness. And when I told her to put it away she laughed and then her friend showed her how to dim the screen brightness.
Now here's where it all climaxed for me having the worst theatre going experience, and I promise you I'm not making this up.
I went to the bathroom at a certain point and when I was coming back to my seat I witnessed the stranger I was sitting beside taking sips from my beer. Not just one sip either. I saw it happen when I was walking up to the row, then as I was getting back to my seat, nearly sitting down, they picked up the can and took a big swig. I was absolutely stunned. I looked at them and said "wtf you're drinking from my drink!!" They looked at the can in their hand and seemed to be equally surprised. They weren't even drinking a beer and had a bottle of water sitting in the cup holder on the other side of them. I wasn't letting it go and finally they left and got me a new drink. Probably sipped out of it on the way back, too.
The movie, itself, was fantastic. I only wish I got to see it in a proper IMAX and with a crowd of functioning members of society.
Well there you have it. Has anyone else had a worse experience than that? I'd love to hear about it.
TLDR:
Terribly seating layout, with most "good" seats having partially blocked view of the screen.
bad picture and sound quality
unruly and immature crowd
a stranger drank from my drink while I went to the bathroom