I’m a theater snob, but I don’t hate this theater. I just won’t buy a ticket there after 6pm. Just like I wouldn’t take my wife on a dinner date to McDonald’s. Will I take my kids to McDonald’s? Sure. And that’s how I feel about this theater. It’s good enough for your kids. And since I have 5 of them, 4 of them seat-fillers, this theater occasionally gets put in the rotation.
What’s it cost?
It’s definitely a good deal at $7.42 for a kid and $9.54 for an adult. I got those prices off Fandango so obviously you can buy tickets off there, but there isn’t much point unless you think the movie will sell out. Seats are NOT reserved. Repeat: not reserved.
For you price shoppers out there, you can see my last review for which local-to-Dunwoody theater is the best bang for your buck: the new Springs Cinema and Taphouse won out and their prices are surprisingly not far off from NCG.
Unlimited everything!
The theater that’s good enough for my kids also feels like it was constructed in a Sim City world by one of them. There’s a wall of unlimited candy in tubes, 4 freestyle Coke machines, 2 self-serve slushee machines, and of course unlimited popcorn.
Unlimited refills are nothing new but one smart thing they did with the popcorn is move it faaaaar away from the cash registers. It’s one employee’s entire job to just shell out popcorn. So you should always get a speedy refill mid-movie.
You can pump your own butter, also pretty common these days, but they usually have 4 different flavors of seasoning to add to it at no charge.
Mid-Review Review
So far so good right?… We’re heading toward an A+. Unless you consider seating a factor…
The seats aren’t Perimeter-Point-bad, but they aren’t good
The seats break down often enough to make you think this NCG really is in a Sim City game. If you sit down and pull on the manual release handle, and it does nothing, don’t feel left out. Plenty of other patrons aren’t reclining for the same reason. And if you do get one that reclines, get ready to blast backwards. everyone in the theater will hear the “ka-chung” noise of your leg rest flying upwards.
I actually feel bad for them regarding these seats. They even put stickers on them to warn people certain ones were busted. They are owning up to the problem and obviously it’s a tad late to go replace every seat. Let’s face it, one can forgive a lot for a $7-9 ticket these days.
Quality control…
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an employee come down the aisle to make sure everything looks and sounds right. And to be fair, for the theaters that do send someone in during the movie, I’m not even sure that’s what those employees are checking. Maybe they are just making sure us movie goers aren’t setting up a tripod to film the movie.
So for a theater that I’ve always assumed would start a showing with the sound completely off, or the house lights still on, that hasn’t happened yet. I did have to ask them once to pull back the curtains completely, and after first telling me the curtains don’t pull back, 3 minutes later, they magically did exactly that.
The projectors seem fine, digital of course. I’ve only seen one movie there that felt too dim, but that could have been the movie itself.
What’s the grade?
I’m giving NCG a B. Scratch that a B+ . They do try. They know they aren’t the best, and they price accordingly. Would I see a Star War here? Definitely not for my first viewing. Or second. But eventually, yes.
Proof people love this theater…
I was waiting for a movie to start once and the guy in the row behind me was trying seat after seat to check which ones actually reclined. After a few attempts I said to him “we get what we pay for, huh”. To which he replies, “What do you mean?”.
Somehow my comment needed explaining so I said, “well you only paid $7 to get in, and you’ve checked like 4 seats so far to see which ones work”.
Now he gets defensive (while STILL checking for broken seats), “Name me one theater that’s better than this”.
I said, “I’ll have a list ready when you’ve finally sat down.”
To be fair, he was looking for a continuous section of reclining seats. Not every one he checked was broken.
The NCG’s Metaphorical Movie Clip…
Since we ended the last movie theater review with a scene from a movie, tradition dictates we must do the same here. Here’s what comes to mind…
