Great cinema - but there's a better one! (Filmworks Cinema (Manchester))

Member Name: amnoangel

Product:	Filmworks Cinema (Manchester)
Date:	17/02/02 (269 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks great,, wide range of films,, not too pricy

Disadvantages: Huge queues,, unpleasant staff,, everybody goes there

I really liked the Filmworks when it first opened. It's in a great part of town, 3 minutes from Market Street, right opposite the Triangle, Marks & Spencers and the nicest (of many) Pizza Express and Starbucks in the city centre. It's in the rather nice Printworks, although the place is disappointing in that half of it still has not opened.

The cinema itself is really nice. There's a coffee bar at the entrance and it's all very newage looking - lots of nice shiny metal all over the place. The problems arise when you get to the queue. When I've gone on a weekday, they have one or two people (who aren't particularly helpful or courteous) serving and you can still be stood for 5 minutes waiting. In school holidays or at the weekend, they don't have many more people serving and you can be queuing for 20 minutes. I would go and buy my tickets hours before the showing when I first arrived in town, go shopping and to eat, before going back, otherwise you most likely miss the start of the film if you leave it too late.

The screens are on several floors with escalators going up and up. The actual screens are nice - comfy seats, lots of space and good refreshments opn offer, although once again the queues are often very long.

One speciality of this cinema is the IMAX screen - this is superb. There are regular showings of a wide range of different films, such as documentaries or Beauty and the Beast. It's not that expensive to get in and is worthwhile going to. The price of the regular cinema screens isn't bad either, although much cheaper in the week.

They have so many screens that there are always a huge amount of films showing here and if the film is big, it will often be showing every half hour.

The problem with the cinema is that until recently it was the only decent cinema in Manchester - the only others were the Odeon (urgh!) and the Cornherhouse (arthouse films). So everybody goes to the
Filmworks. You'll always see people you know and may not want to see and as mentioned before, the queues are always awful.

In the last few months, another cinema at the Great Northern Warehouse has opened and very few people know about it, although it's brilliant and my new favourite cinema! I've written a review of it - check it out - it's called AMC Great Northern.

Overall, the filmworks is a nice cinema with a wide range of films, but it's not a very relaxing place to go to.

Summary: