Review: Odeon - Point Village

Ticket price 10.50 for the iScreen

I have always said if you go to see a movie in a nice cinema and on a nice screen, no matter how bad the movie is the pure enjoyment of cinema going is provided. I refer to the awful Tim Burton Remake of Planet of the Ape, which I saw in the Savoy in Dublin City Centre.

But the Savoy is an old time cinema, you walk in through its doors and you are met with old time cinema magic. And Screen 1 is amazing.

Both Belfast and Dublin had an IMAX screen, but both have since closed. Leaving the Island without access to IMAX. Along comes Odeon's iScreen.

Odeon bought up 2 Cinema chains in Ireland, UCI and Storm Cinemas, both chains are now in the process of the rebranding to Odeon.

However Odeon Point Village theirs and Dublin's newest cinema, is a great dissappointment. And the much hearlded iScreen is just as dissappointing. Its 3 stories high! This brings me all the way back to 1996 and UCI Coolock when I went to the cinema with my Father.

We went to see GoldenEye, and coming out of the screen my father wasn't all that impress and said "It was like watching a big television screen". And the Odeon's iScreen isn't much more than a big television screen.

It is situated on the top floor of one of Ireland's ghost shopping centres. You walk through the empty building with posters leading you all the way to the top of the building. Like any modern shopping centre it lacks the hussel and bussel of Dublin's O'Connolly, Henry or Grafton Streets. Its on the edge, surrounded by building works that might be considered "closed for recession, back soon!".

I arrive an hour before the film. A 3pm start to the showing, it was "The Hunger Games". Not my first choice for a movie, actually it would be one that on any other occassion I would have avoided if at all possible. (I was expecting the worst, perhaps the screen did help).

I asked if there was anything to do but the staff told me that I'd have to go back into town, so instead I got some lunch in Costa Cafe. A typical franchise of the company, which seem to have a deal with all Odeon cinemas. I had a Beef Wrap and Latte. The beef was overly processed, but then what was I expecting, but at €10 I may have asked for something a little bit better.

I bought my ticket and grub (after all this is a big budget movie I am going to see). The popcorn was excellent, pity about the range of sweet, the coke was a 2012 vintage!

The iScreen cinema has cheap seats to the front, which were very unconfortable, and nicer seats to the back. I don't think there is a price difference. I moved to the nicer seats, and felt like telling others to move up, after all the screening had just 10 people at it.

Overall I think the prime Odeon has a number of problems. Firstly its a good bit out of town, with nothing other then The Point Theatre to attract people to the new cinema, the iScreen might be a bit of a novilty to attract others. Secondly its not a cinema, or at least it doesn't feel like a cinema, its at the very most an empty shopping centre and at the very least an empty office building, both of which aren't attrative.

If your in Dublin City and plan a trip to the cinema I advise on Savoy, particularly screen 1 for those big blockbusters. If your looking for something arty then either the IFI in Temple Bar or the Lighthouse in Smithfeild.