It is not you, the sound really is getting worse

Right.  Closed caption on Hulu, Netflix etc solved all my problems.  And my popcorn is better, and less expensive.  I will never enter a theatre again.  

Movie audio is a dealbreaker. Unintelligible dialogue with juvenile sound effects. Since forever. At home with headphones is the way to watch a movie, if ever again a watchable movie should be made. A movie with no Tarantino gore, no superheroes, no zombies, no intergalactic warfare. Nor, on the other side, the standard puerile navel-gazing, however artsy or Swedish or French or Italian.

Dialogues in movies soundtracks on discs have issues. It’s a well known fact. Most people setting up their home theater systems raise the center channel by 4 to 6 dB. Even regular channels like CNN etc have to be raised accordingly. Added to the problem is the design of a lot of center channel speakers. The two midrange drivers with the tweeter in the middle is not a good design in terms of dialogue clarity. If you are into movies, you need to up the budget for the center channel speaker. I used three identical speakers for left, right and center to good effect in addition to raising the level of the center by 4 dB. 

I rarely go to see a movie.  But last year I had a few hours to kill so I went to one.  I remember thinking to myself, At least one sound system in Kona is worst then mine.  Part of the napkin for my popcorn went into my ears.  Which just lowered the level of the ugly.  

I think all cinemas should install Kenjit speakers. Sound will then be perfect ....