My first thought after I finished watching The Interview: “North Korea bothered to hack Sony over a movie this pathetically terrible?” The Interview, without a doubt, is one of the worst movies I have seen in the last 3 or 4 years.
The plot of The Interview is fairly simple. Dave Skylark (James Franco) is the host of a celebrity gossip show that largely produces ridiculous headlines like “Eminem is Gay.” Aaron Rapaport (Seth Rogen) is Skylark’s producer, who longs to cover more serious stories. The duo eventually learns that Kim Jong-un is a fan of the show, and Skylark asks Kim if he is interested in giving an interview on the show. Surprisingly, Kim accepts and demands that Skylark and Rapaport fly to North Korea for the interview. Soon after, Skylark and Rapaport are approached by a CIA Agent, Lacey (Lizzy Caplan), who tasks them with assassinating the dictator.
The plot of The Interview is fairly simple. Dave Skylark (James Franco) is the host of a celebrity gossip show that largely produces ridiculous headlines like “Eminem is Gay.” Aaron Rapaport (Seth Rogen) is Skylark’s producer, who longs to cover more serious stories. The duo eventually learns that Kim Jong-un is a fan of the show, and Skylark asks Kim if he is interested in giving an interview on the show. Surprisingly, Kim accepts and demands that Skylark and Rapaport fly to North Korea for the interview. Soon after, Skylark and Rapaport are approached by a CIA Agent, Lacey (Lizzy Caplan), who tasks them with assassinating the dictator.
My main issue with this movie was James Franco’s character. Dave Skylark is probably one of the stupidest characters in movie history. His entire comedic repertoire consists of pee jokes, poop jokes, fart jokes, and the occasional sex joke. I genuinely believe that James Franco is a brilliant actor, given the right role, but in The Interview, he acts like an overgrown four-year-old. In certain comedies, the right amount of stupidity can be hilarious, but Franco’s character is so stupid that it is simply off-putting and nauseating.
Seth Rogen does a mediocre job playing Aaron Rapoport, the intelligent producer at a very unintelligent show. I am extremely thankful that the screenwriters decided to make Rogen’s character at least moderately intelligent, otherwise I probably would have thrown my computer through the window at the 30-minute mark. Randall Park’s portrayal of Kim Jong-un as a lunatic with major daddy issues was actually fairly interesting and funny, which managed to offset some of Franco’s buffoonery.
Now, for all of my harsh criticism, I will admit that I did occasionally laugh while watching this movie. However, for every funny scene, there was at least 10 nonsensical, ridiculous scenes, such as a scene when Seth Rogen has sex with North Korean press secretary in a nuclear bunker. The Interview is a haphazardly made movie filled with sex, violence, and gore, and not much else. North Korea legitimized this trashy movie by hacking Sony, which in my mind, generated this movie more publicity than it ever deserved.
Grade: D
Seth Rogen does a mediocre job playing Aaron Rapoport, the intelligent producer at a very unintelligent show. I am extremely thankful that the screenwriters decided to make Rogen’s character at least moderately intelligent, otherwise I probably would have thrown my computer through the window at the 30-minute mark. Randall Park’s portrayal of Kim Jong-un as a lunatic with major daddy issues was actually fairly interesting and funny, which managed to offset some of Franco’s buffoonery.
Now, for all of my harsh criticism, I will admit that I did occasionally laugh while watching this movie. However, for every funny scene, there was at least 10 nonsensical, ridiculous scenes, such as a scene when Seth Rogen has sex with North Korean press secretary in a nuclear bunker. The Interview is a haphazardly made movie filled with sex, violence, and gore, and not much else. North Korea legitimized this trashy movie by hacking Sony, which in my mind, generated this movie more publicity than it ever deserved.
Grade: D
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