I wanted to compare gold class to velvet but we had a huge downpour and neither of us felt like going outside and crossing the street. Fortunately, the mall attached to the Grand Hyatt in Jakarta also has a cinema and it is screening Pikachu, whoop.

Avengers really dominates the luxury experience. I didn’t want to see it again. It was long enough the first time. At CGV it is the only thing showing in Gold and Velvet class so we were going to have to suck it up and watch in a standard theatre no matter which cinema chain we went to. CinemaXXI meant we didn’t have to go outside so we were ok with the ordinary cinema experince, this time.

So we trundled downstairs and through the mall, then back up some stairs to go and see Pikachu. It the only other thing I was interested in. Yay! So glad we did. It is the cutest movie ever. I mean, Pikachu, right?! Super cute anyway and then Ryan Reynolds… I mean… riiiight?

No spoilers, there are Pokemon in the movie and some of the “lamest” ones in the game are now my faves. Well, it is just one. So so so hilarious. OMG, I laughed too much, I don’t know why. I laughed loudest and longest at that part.

It was mostly adults in the cinema. It was only adults until a party of 8 came in about 10 minutes late. They had 6 kids with them. I laughed louder than those kids.

At the end of the movie, the most entertaining thing was people gasped and clapped. I don’t know if it would happen anywhere other than Asia, so you may know the spot when you see it, but if not…. it is the part where he “has one last thing to do” and the reveal of the last thing. That thing made everyone gasp when it was shown on screen. I was like wow, really, that took everyone’s breath away??

Anyway, ok so the cinema. Standard seats. They were fine. For us both to go it was 100,000IDR which is about $10. So, it didn’t feel like an awesome deal compared to Velvet class. It is about half the price of the cheap weekday movies in Sydney. The interesting thing between the two cinemas is that our “large” popcorn and drink at Cinema XXI was the same price as our aqua combo deal, upsized, at the CGV cinema. Both came to 90,000IDR, about $9 Aussie.

There is a huge difference in value here though. 2 drinks vs 1 and the popcorn was about half the size. For snacks, it makes sense to head to the CGV cinema but the standard movie tickets are 60,000 at CVG verses 50,000 at Cinema XXI.

Overall experience, I preferred the Pikachu movie so that is hard for me to say. Overall value, I would personally look to CGV cinema first but have no issue with the Cinema XXI.

As for the comparison between the two, I would return to both but if I could get into Gold Class at CGV to compare I might say for Aussies, it is worth sticking with the premium theatres at CGV.

Velvet – I would go with Velvet again no questions. I did look for Pikachu in Velvet but they only get to screen the Avengers a few times a day as it is, they don’t have time to show other movies. We would have loved to see Pikachu in either Gold Class there or Velvet.

I am glad we went to see Pikachu before people starting talking about it. It came out yesterday in Singapore and Australia and the day before in Indonesia. I think the earliest release was on the 3rd of May. Personally, I wasn’t too worried about Avengers spoilers but Pikachu was so good. I had no expectations and they were exceeded. Avengers, my expectation was it would be long, it met that expectation.