One of the levels of Hell, between pride and gluttony but before the city of Dis, is being trapped in a ScreenX theatre. I hope whoever invented the concept of a “luxury” movie theatre with ScreenX showings finds themselves there.

My sister’s roommate, a self-proclaimed musical fangirl who shall henceforth be known as “Roommate,” desperately wanted to see the new “Wicked” movie and asked my sister and me to join her. Roommate wanted to go to a nice theatre that wasn’t Alamo Drafthouse, so I suggested the nearest Cinepolis, a luxury theatre known for a full-service bar, extensive menu, and comfortable chairs.

The biggest hitch in our plans was that my sister, Bean, has garbage taste in entertainment and hates musicals because she doesn’t understand why the characters “don’t just talk instead.” So naturally, in our group text, Roommate and I made all the plans and bought tickets to the first showing of “Wicked” with three seats next to each other. It would be on Sunday at 9:55 pm, a ridiculous time to see a movie, especially since Roommate and Bean had to be at work the next morning by 8 am. But Roommate’s drive to see “Wicked” was far more powerful than her need to sleep or regard for Bean’s feelings, so we went forward with the ticket purchase, and promised to buy Bean plenty of snacks at the theatre to make up for dragging her to a musical.

The resulting experience, starting from the moment we arrived in the Cinepolis lobby, was such a disaster that I’m choosing to write this post less as a review of the “Wicked” movie and more as a warning to anyone who wants to go to any “luxury” movie theatre.

Everything went wrong from the moment we went to the kiosk to print our tickets. Nothing brings out my inner Luddite faster than a malfunctioning touchscreen. We struggled to print out our tickets for nearly ten minutes, so I went on a hunt to find any Cinepolis employees who could help us. Rather than have a dedicated space for in-person ticket sales and customer service, Cinepolis converted that into a giant snack bar. The snack bar people were unable to help us with our movie tickets, so they directed us to the people staffing the bar. The bartender, of all people, was the person who helped us finalize our ticket purchases, which made no sense because the person mixing mojitos should not also have the responsibility of helping customers print out tickets.

Then we walked into the theatre without seeing anyone who checked our tickets. Bean said that happened the last time she was at this theatre, so I get the feeling that no one at Cinepolis cares if you pay for your ticket. The effort we went through to pay for and print out tickets was unnecessary because Cinepolis makes most of its money on food sales. My group ordered a ton of food, costing over $120, as we all ordered meals, drinks, and popcorn. Our meals were decent, especially my Southwest Bowl, and the waitstaff was attentive (as long as you pressed the “attend me” button or whatever it’s called), but I think it’s ridiculous that the iced tea I spent $11 on had no refills. I have no one to blame for that but myself, but Christ, getting my check at the end of the night made me feel like an idiot. Spending $40 per person on B-grade food did not make me feel better about our evening.

I didn’t realize it then, but the tickets we purchased were for the ScreenX experience. Having now watched a movie in ScreenX, I can say with my whole chest that it is the Cybertruck of movie viewing. ScreenX works by placing the audience in a theatre with three screens: the front screen for regular viewing and two screens on either side of the audience to provide an “immersive” viewing experience. The result is that while you’re trying to watch a movie on the main screen, the side screens will occasionally light up with bright, low-resolution videos to accompany the main action. I could see the benefits of this format if I was at a planetarium or watching that one scene from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The best way to enjoy this feature is to ignore it, because if you look too closely at the side screens, you’ll get nauseous. The best way I can describe it is if you’ve ever worn glasses, and your vision through the glass is clear, but your peripheral vision is blurry and unrecognizable. Now imagine paying $25 a ticket to experience that.

There was no benefit to seeing “Wicked” on ScreenX. The soft, out-of-focus images of Oz that occasionally played on either side of me did little to make me feel like I was in the Emerald City or Shiz University. Also, I don’t need to feel like I’m in the world of Oz. Anyone who goes to see this movie understands that they are seeing a work of fiction and are capable of suspending their disbelief enough to “immerse” themselves in the story. At best, the side screens are a strange distraction from the story I’m trying to enjoy. It was also used inconsistently, as the side screens would only turn on whenever there was a musical number, which, like I said before, was distracting. ScreenX feels like the weird child of the horrible overuse of 3D back in the early 2000s. I understand that theatres are trying to find ways to get people into seats, but there are better ways to do that than these annoying gimmicks.

The worst part of the movie came about twenty minutes in during the slightly-homoromantic number “What Is This Feeling?” As the side screens lit up, a loud, screeching static began to emit from the speakers. It sounded a lot like the static you’ll hear when the TV is unable to get a signal. I thought it might go away after a moment, but it persisted, drowning out the music on-screen and persisting to such a degree that everyone in the theatre began to look at each other in alarm and cover their ears.

I, and another patron, had to physically leave the theatre to attempt to find someone who could help us with whatever was happening. Someone found a waiter milling around, who seemed unconcerned by this technical malfunction. The screeching inside the theatre rose to such a level that everyone had to evacuate and wait outside in the hall while the movie we’d looked forward to seeing played inside without us. Eventually, the screeching stopped, but I do not know if that’s because someone fixed it or if the screeching ended on its own. Roommate, Bean, and I thought that as the whole theatre had to miss an entire scene due to serious technical issues, they would at least try to rewind the footage, or temporarily pause the movie so that they could make a “sorry about that, folks,” statement, but nothing happened. We just had to wait out the static screeching, and then we were able to go back to see our movie, which was the scene where Elphaba meets Fiyero. I asked a waiter if anything would be done about the portion of the movie we’d missed, and he said that we could see a manager after the movie about getting a refund, so that was something, at least.

We watched the rest of the movie with no interruptions, although all of us were anxious whenever the side screens lit up. As for my thoughts about the actual movie? I’ve always considered “Wicked” a B- musical and filed it mentally under the category of “Things That Would Probably Make Me Happier If I Could Just Like Them Why Am I Like This?” where it sits with the ACOTAR series and the Christmas movie “Love, Actually.” Bean fell asleep after the tech incident and Roommate seemed to enjoy it well enough. I’m considering going to another, quieter theatre and watching it alone. I’ll write another review for it later when I’m less irritated.

After the movie ended, it was past midnight, and Bean and Roommate wanted to leave. Unfortunately, we still needed to get our refunds, and we knew that would be a disaster as there was no designed customer service station. Instead, the same bartender who had helped us before the movie was charged with giving refunds to every person who left the theatre. I don’t know why they didn’t consider issuing everyone a refund credit while the movie was still rolling, as that would have been much more efficient and cut off customer complaints (and this blog post).

We snagged a spot at the front of the line, which meant nothing, as the unfortunate bartender spent 20 minutes unsuccessfully trying to refund Roommate for the movie. We also learned that, due to the earlier technical issue, Roommate was charged for two tickets to see “Gladiator II.” It seems very possible that at the self-checkout kiosk, the malfunction that made it so we were unable to print out tickets allowed for someone else to purchase their own tickets to see “Gladiator II.” Whoever ripped off my friend, I hope you enjoyed your movie more than I did. Also, you didn’t need to do that because no one checks tickets there anyway.

Despite the bartender’s best efforts, the system was so badly designed it made it near-impossible for my friend to get her refund, or even a credit for a future movie. Meanwhile, the line of discontented moviegoers only grew. We eventually left the theatre without our refund but with a vague promise that the bartender would do her best to help us. We were exhausted and past the point of caring, vowing to make that a problem for our future selves. I can’t even imagine how that trapped bartender must have felt.

Cinepolis is crammed full of staff, few of them were helpful. While there were plenty of people to mix drinks at the bar and bring audiences their popcorn, no one helped with the most important part of the theatre: showing us the movie. And before you accuse me of being a Karen, I want to clarify: I don’t blame them for their helplessness. It was clear that some of them had specific jobs and were not trained to pick up additional tasks, so when things inevitably went wrong, they were unable to do anything. To me, that’s indicative of ineffective upper management and overreliance on capricious technology. Almost all of them appear to be walking around aimlessly, unable to do anything but the most basic tasks, leaving the entire burden of customer service to fall on one girl who looks like she’s still in community college. For a movie theatre to pride itself on being a luxurious, technologically-advanced experience, this complete lack of staff organization was embarrassing.

I truly believe in being kind to everyone, but especially to people working in high-stress retail positions. I felt so awful for the poor girl forced to bear the brunt of 20+ disappointed movie-goers. Upper management should have anticipated this movie was going to be popular (no pun intended), and provided their staff with more support. That was really where this movie theatre failed.

Oh, and there was a food service robot that sat in the middle of the hall and did nothing all night. Was that the worst experience of the night? No, but this question asked about technology we would be better off without, and I can’t help but think an expensive robot sitting unused while the human waiters are forced to climb hundreds of steps to serve people their popcorn and checks is not part of the Tomorrowland our forefathers dreamed of.