Cineworld Cinema - Yeovil

Cineworld Yeovil opened in April 2002 and was designed by Unick Architects. It has 1897 seats and was the 26th in the British start-up chain.

I visited Screen 2, the largest auditorium. It has an impressive large Scope screen with no movable side masking. The auditorium was impressively very dark during the film itself.

Cineworld often gets criticism (on this site and other forums) about its modern multiplexes, typically comments about the auditoria being too light and some screens being ‘Flat’ necessitating Scope films to be letterboxed.

Back in the early 2000s, Cineworlds were designing their cinemas correctly, Yeovil being a good example. I could not fault Screen 2, it was excellent. I am told that all the other screens are Scope as well.

Visited here 3 times over the summer as I had to make a couple trips to Yeovil anyways. To start with, on paper the prices do appear to be expensive although I did try to take advantage of cheaper showings that were on and a £5 discount I was able to find online. In regards to the cinema itself, its a bit hidden away, tucked in between a bowling alley and leisure centre so the location of the entrance isn’t obvious to begin with. The LED boards on top of the doors and below the logo is switched off (which used to show what films were on). The foyer is really empty and a shell of its former self really. The TV chandelier is turned off, the former box office, bar and arcade areas are all cornered off (from what I could find the arcade was only taken out recently whereas the bar and box office have not been in use for at least 15 years). The self serve ticket machines didn’t seem to work so went to the till order tickets and a drink, nice they accept cash (unlike other cinemas). Two sets of toilets (one in the foyer and one in the alleyway). Plenty of staff around with varying attitudes based on the days of my visit (some days staff were friendly, others they were bored and static). The alleyway of screens is slightly eerie and a bit of time capsule, still with unchanged numbers for the screens in the shape of the 2000’s Cineworld logo (forgot to mention, but these were also on the signs for the toilet doors), dark lighting only lit up by the light coming through the clear fire exit at the end and LED screens showcasing the screen number (which also used to show the film name). Two out of 3 of my visits had no problems. Screens fine and clear, seats and general area clean, no issues. Mostly quiet except the £1 screening of Flow I saw which was full up (fortunately no screaming babies, only distraction was a parent in the front on their phone browsing Facebook). Unfortunately, one of my visits was slightly disrupted as mid film, the frames froze for around 5-10 seconds and then unfroze. This happened around 3-4 times but did affect viewing too much so I didn’t complain. Overall nice cinema but would only feel inclined to visit again if I happened to be in the area, otherwise its not really worth my time as there are much better, cheaper and more reliable cinemas closer to home.