A Review of the First Half of Planet of the Apes
8/6/2001 2:17 PM
I saw Planet of the Apes last night. Well, the first half. I went to see it at the UltraScreen, seemingly a great place to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster.8/6/2001 2:17 PM
Wrong.
About midway through, we lost the picture and were treated to the radio version of the movie. I and about a half dozen other people went out to find the manager. They soon stopped the film and we sat for a good five minutes while they dinked around. It gave us a chance to catch up on the Hollywood gossip that was displayed on screen during the wait. Hey, Renee Zellweger is going to be starring in Bridget Jones's Diary!
Finally, the movie started up again and to my surprise, they had actually rewound it about five minutes. My glee was short-lived, however, as to problem happened again. And again. And again. And again. Throughout that repeated five minutes, I estimate the picture went out at least a dozen times. By the time we got back to the original breakdown point, however, it seemed like the picture was actually going to stay up. And it did.
For about two minutes.
At this point, I'm wishing I had that Jedi thing where you can choke people with your mind. The screen went black and they made no effort whatsoever to try and fix it. And this was during a pretty pivotal plot point, the Big Reveal of the apes' origin. So now that's blown for me. Thanks, Marcus Theaters.
That was enough for me and we left. We got our measly free passes, but that wasn't enough. We spoke to the manager, but she just didn't seem to get it. That wasn't enough. I've written a letter to the president of Marcus Theaters. That wasn't enough.
I'm starting a new web site, where disgruntled movie patrons can gather and vent about crappy movie-going experiences. You'll be able to grouse about idiots in the theater with you as well as technical problems, and maybe we can come up with a few solutions. Or not, but it'll be fun just to bitch. So far, the title I'm leaning towards is yourtheatersucks.com; email me if you have any better suggestions.
Oh yeah, Planet of the Apes. What I saw of it, I enjoyed. I wonder how it'll turn out. It's almost like those old weekly serials. "Will Marky Mark get his stinking hands of the damn dirty ape?" Will he get some hot monkey love?" And what is the mysterious origin of the Planet of the Apes? Find out next week!"