Dave Skylark (James Franco) is a talk show host who interviews celebrities. After he and his producer, Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogen) discover Kim Jong-un (Randall Park) likes their show, they set up an interview. However, soon the CIA contacts them, and asks them to fulfil the daunting task of assassinating the Supreme Leader. It's questionable how much steam this concept actually has: North Korea is a really easy target, to the point where one wonders if there's much interesting satire to be had at the country's expense. With Seth Rogen at the helm, of course, it was questionable if there would be any real satire to begin with, and in fact the film only benefits from its setting through mocking the world's most mockable country. While in the United States this is hardly an act of bravery, making a film of it is something a little bit bigger. If there's one thing to praise The Interview for, it's for setting a reasonably decent precedent for such controversial films in the future.
Skylark's talk show is the first thing we see on the show, and it's insufferable. The intro to the film, involving a cameo from Eminem, is host to the worst jokes of the film, and considering the lows that The Interview reaches, that's saying something. However, if one can get through this intro, they'll find that the quantity of decent jokes increases as the film gets to the point. Of course it's never especially smart, but some of the jokes are at least amusing enough in their goofiness. However, with such a goofy comedy movie, the jokes will inevitably be scattershot and mixed in quality, and that is absolutely true here. Funny jokes are soon followed by unfunny ones, and those range from merely falling flat to being outright cringeworthy, to being the twentieth anus joke, which is no longer funny at that point. Make no mistake, this is incredibly broad humour, and suffers from all the pitfalls of aiming for such a low bar.
In addition, the film draws a lot from the cliches of the genre. There's a lot of partying, there's a lot of sex jokes, there's a lot of montages-you know, some of the more annoying comedy tropes of the past several years. Kim Jong-un is, unsurprisingly, depicted as a manchild, though he's paired with Skylark in that regard. The latter is your generic comedic moron, with Aaron being his "straight man" who's... SOMEWHAT more intelligent. Comedy films centring around stupid main characters is a tradition lasting as long as film itself, of course, but Kim, Skylark and Aaron are no Three Stooges. Of the three, the only one who won't be forgotten by this time next year will be Kim, and only because Kim Jong-un is a real person and most view him as a bit of a petulant child anyways.
Conversely, this is not actually a badly shot movie. Directors Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen clearly have some chops, as scenes are frequently well-composed and well-shot. Lighting is also strong, set up in a visually appealing manner. There's some action scenes further in the film, and those are actually fairly well choreographed. Still, not all the direction is good. While the score is decent enough, the more comedic music choices fall flat. Additionally, there's a few other ideas peppered in which simply aren't up to par.
The Interview is, ultimately, more or less what you expect it to be. If you hate Seth Rogen movies, you'll hate this. If you're a fan of dumb, raunchy comedies, you'll enjoy this. Otherwise, your opinion will probably be somewhere in the middle, as The Interview is sort of a mixed bag, and aside from the controversy mostly unremarkable. I was expecting that I'd find it funny that the North Koreans were upset at this, but ultimately it's just sorta sad.
5/10
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