I know this is already old news, and that this movie has
been dissected, torn apart, un-released, re-released, and fan-fared for various
reasons, but its snowy, cold, and I couldn’t be bothered to get to the theater
this week. I (hopefully) promise that a more modern movie review will drop next
week (Think “USA Shooter” for hints).
But for now we have this to go through. I first want to talk
about the hype surrounding the release. If a whole country that was under a
dictatorship hadn’t gotten involved and if Sony hadn’t gotten majorly hacked, I
could see this falling under a simple publicity tour. Sony saw that it had a
sub-par (spoiler for second half of review) comedy on its hands and they needed
a way to make it stand out. Obviously this isn’t the case for this specific
example, but does it seem that outlandish in the cutthroat world of released
movies? The concept of pulling a movie from theaters also sets a bad precedent.
Are they setting the stage where anyone who shares a strong opinion on a movie’s
release just has to put a threat out on Twitter or some sub-Reddit and have it
blow up to pull a movie out of theaters? Obviously that’s an extreme example,
but one of the best parts of the medium of film is that it challenges or even offends
what you believe in, which can lead to further discussion and thoughts. Are
major studios just going to pull any film that could be seen as offensive? Only
time will tell.
That brings me to what I think my biggest issue with the
movie. In my opinion it’s a sub-par comedy with the exact same gags that come
from this particular team. In fact, I would say most of the most quotable jokes
are given away in the trailers (see: “He’s peanut butter and jealous” and “Don’t
hate us cause you ain’t us”). Add in some butt-shove bits and Rogan/Franco
stoner moments and you have a paint by numbers comedy. I will admit there were
a few bits that were pretty funny (especially the recurring use of “Fireworks”
by Katy Perry) but there just wasn’t enough to hold a candle to something like “This
is the End”.
I will say that Randall Park was amazing as Kim Jong-Un,
especially given the over the top characterization he was working with (trivia
fact: he gained 20 pounds for the role!). That being said, imagine how much
funnier and how further they could go if they simply used a made-up dictator
and country that was LIKE the North Korea situation but not by the same name.
They could push the boundaries and insults way further, and North Korea wouldn’t
have as much as a leg to stand on about the insults to their “Supreme Leader”. I’m not a comedy writer so I can’t think of a specific
direction they could go but I’m confident they could put their heads together
to come up with something heavier than Kim Jong-Un liking Margaritas, Katy Perry,
and sharting on TV. This would probably also help with all the bad publicity and
issues surrounding its release, especially when you consider Team America’s
wide-spread mockery that was eased by puppets doing all the insults. I’m sure
there’s an ironic joke in here about Franco and Rogan being puppets to their
industry that’s lost on me…I think the montage of Franco and Kim playing b-ball
and getting into other shenanigans was along the right lines, which I’m sure
was seen as much more insulting to the actual leader but came across as
politically dangerous as a kitten meme stateside.
At the end of the day, I think The Interview will be
remembered more for the news and controversy surrounding it and not it actual content.
It’s a sub-par stoner comedy that almost handicaps itself with its subject
matter, and it will be interesting to see if the movie industry is changed from
it.
Final Score: C-
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