If you haven’t heard of The Interview yet, you have not been living under a rock. You have been living under a large pile of individual rocks. Where hasn’t this movie been? This movie has been on news channels, internet chat, and the White House! This movie is one of few in a select club to have sparked international debate on whether or not to even show it. After Sony, the company that made the movie, reluctantly pulled the movie from theaters due to terrorist threats, The Interview was released on December 24 available on internet stores like Amazon Video or Google Play.
The Interview stars James Franco as Dave Skylark, star of a popular celebrity interview show, Skylark Tonight. His producer, Aaron Rappoport, played by Seth Rogen, desires to be taken more seriously after producing the same wacky celebrity TV show for eight years. After discovering that Skylark Tonight is Kim Jong Un’s third favorite television show, Dave and Aaron try to set up a groundbreaking interview with the oppressive dictator to get the show huge ratings and to get Aaron the serious reputation he wants. Once the CIA finds out of the interview, they confront Dave and Aaron to try to convince them to assassinate Kim Jong Un. Using a high-tech poison strip, the team is flown to North Korea for the interview of their destinies.
All of this sounds all good and dandy. If only all of the information you read in the last paragraph wasn’t blasted at you at high speeds within the opening ten minutes of the actual movie. Past the movie’s problem of pacing, the movie does have its high points, which can be found within the movie’s main low point. The movie itself is 112 minutes long. The titular interview is about 20 minutes. When you subtract the ten minute long barrage of information at the beginning, this leaves 82 minutes. These 82 minutes provide us with the North Korean vacation! This film dedicated 82 minutes to hypnotize Skylark and Rappoport with North Korea’s “wonders.” Sure, this does lead to hilarious Far East shenanigans, but it is just too long to tell the viewers that Kim Jong Un and his country are bad. Other than that, the movie is just fine; it’s absurdly funny, as a good comedy should be, and it’s easy to follow and get into.
Going in with somewhat low expectations, this being another stupid Seth Rogen movie where nothing is memorable, I found myself slightly surprised. It’s not the funniest or best comedy out there, but it does have some scenes worth going back and watching again. Plus, it’s one of the few good comedies of this year. However, the plot is lackluster, the pacing is outright terrible being extremely fast in the beginning and finishing out at a snail’s pace, and there are many dumb clichés and lame jokes fitted in to balance out the good things about the movie. All in all, the movie is good, which is all one can say about it. Good. The good balanced out the bad.
The movie is R rated, which basically means that there is an overload of profanities and sexual overtones, like every other Seth Rogen film. If you’re easily offended, stay away from this movie and anything with an R rating. If not, you’ll definitely like this movie for what it is, an average R-rated movie.