I Finally Watched...The Interview

I've been meaning to bring this series back for awhile now.  Originally I was going to do a write-up about the 'Beverly Hills Cop' trilogy.  I watched the entire trilogy on Netflix over the course of a day and even jotted down a few notes.  But time passed and I got lazy so I decided not to write anything about it.  Then I came up with another idea:  Since last year around Christmas time I wrote about 'It's A Wonderful Life' and 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians', I'll write about another Christmas classic this year and I settled on 'White Christmas'.  But I scrapped those plans once the controversy for this movie really started heating up a week before it's already rescheduled theatrical release (from October to December).  So, with this movie now becoming one of the most controversial movies of all time, I decided to write-up about it.  So, without further adieu, "I Finally Watched..." returns with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's controversial 2014 political comedy 'The Interview'.  Who would have thought that the writers of 'Superbad' and 'Pineapple Express' would be behind one of the most controversial movies of all time?

I can't quite pinpoint when I first heard about 'The Interview'.  At this point I'm assuming that I first had heard of it reading an article on some movie news website which announced that 'The Interview' would be Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's follow-up to their successful 2013 directorial debut 'This Is The End'.  Evidently Rogen and Goldberg came up with the story several years ago, starting off with just the central idea of a celebrity being tasked with killing a dictator and eventually settling on Kim Jong-Un.  Then a few years later after the script had been written former NBA star Dennis Rodman visited with North Korea and hung out with Kim, which lent some realistic plausibility to their story. 

I usually like Seth Rogen's movies so this was on my radar of movies to watch.  The first trailers started popping up earlier this year and to be honest...I was less then impressed.  Both the normal trailers and the restricted red band trailers had a chuckle here and there, but nothing that shouted out "THIS LOOKS HILARIOUS AND I NEED TO SEE THIS MOVIE!!"

But then all this controversy started happening and that peaked my interest.

Way back in June, a spokesman for the North Korean government said that this movie was an act of war and that there would be retaliation.  A few months later Sony moved the movie from it's planned October 10 release date to Christmas Day.  Coincidence??  Yes.  Movies change release dates all the time.  Plus with the holiday season Sony could easily make a little more money by releasing it then as opposed to releasing it in the fall. 

A few more months go by and it's now November.  Some more threats had come from North Korea here and there, but nothing that hadn't already been said.  That is, until the cyber attack on Sony Pictures that not only released a myriad of private emails between studio executives and producers (including controversy about editing Kim Jong-Un's death scene in this movie), but also social security numbers, then unreleased movies from Sony, and threats that an attack on the scale of September 11th would happen to movie theaters that showed 'The Interview'.  Sony initially stood their ground and kept the Christmas Day release, but then they let the theater chains decide for themselves whether or not to even show the movie.  After many chains pulled the movie, Sony cancelled the release and thus came another storm of controversy that had almost everyone in America in agreement, no matter which side of the political aisle you were on:  Sony caved into terrorist demands and that 'The Interview' needs to be seen.  That Sony had set a dangerous precedent by allowing a dictator from the other side of the world to impose censorship in the United States.

A few days later Sony announced that it would be getting a limited theatrical release and that it would also be available to rent on YouTube, iTunes, Google Play, and Xbox Video.  This of course ignited conspiracy theories that this was all one huge publicity stunt, a conspiracy that I don't really buy into.
Anyway, after hearing that this movie would be showing at Bones Theater in Columbia City (starting Christmas Day) and at the Cinema Center in Fort Wayne (starting New Years Day) I decided that I would be going to see it in the theater (as was originally intended) at some point.  So, Sunday afternoon I drove over to Columbia City to see this movie.  A movie that surprisingly has become a symbol for freedom of expression and is now one of the most controversial movies of all time.  Yes, 'The Interview' is now in the same category with such movies as 'Passion of the Christ', 'Monty Python's Life of Brian', 'Cannibal Holocaust', 'The Pope Must Die' and 'A Clockwork Orange'.  And with all the international controversy in ten years this movie might just be in a history book.  Yes, my future children will grow up learning about 'The Interview' in a history book in school.  That's a scary thought...

Well enough babbling.  Then again there has always been more talk about the controversy surrounding this movie than the actual movie itself, which has been getting mixed reviews from critics.  'The Interview' stars James Franco as entertainment journalist Dave Skylark, host of 'Skylark Tonight'.  Seth Rogen plays his producer and friend Aaron Rapoport, who longs to do real news and to be taken seriously as a journalist.  The opportunity soon arrives when it is discovered that Kim Jong-Un (Randall Park) is a big fan of 'Skylark Tonight' and that he is willing to grant an interview with Dave.  After the news comes out about the interview, CIA Agent Lacy (Lizzy Caplan) recruits Aaron and Dave to use Dave's interview as an opportunity to assassinate Kim Jong-Un.

First things first:  If you don't like Seth Rogen's movies, you will probably not like this movie.  This does feature more satirical elements than any of his other movies and more political humor, such as spoofing the fake crying that was all over the news from North Korea when Kim Jong-il died.  But it's still filled to the brim with their usual barrage of foul language and crude sex jokes.  Now, having said that, what do I think of the movie?

I thought it was absolutely hilarious from start to finish, with very few jokes that misfired.  Think if 'This Is The End', 'Neighbors', 'Team America', 'Spies Like Us' and The Daily Show all were shoved into a blender.  The resulting depraved mixture would be 'The Interview'.  Not only was it very funny and very well paced, but I also thought it was very well acted.  Seth Rogen gets his fair share of zingers but he's usually the straight man to Academy Award nominee James Franco's absolutely bonkers Dave Skylark.  Heck, even Randall Park does a really good job as Kim Jong-Un.  He's a manipulative monster:  In one scene he's being hellbent on destroying the world just to prove a point.  In other scenes he's showering Dave with gifts, playing basketball (with the rims lowered so he can dunk), driving around the tank for fun, drinking margaritas, listening to Katy Perry' song "Firework" and confiding into Dave that he feels under pressure from his deceased father and the image that's been created for him as a god among his people.  Truth be told it is a good performance.  It also contains a very funny cameo by Eminem.  The movie does get incredibly violent and bloody towards the end, but in an R-rated comedy about an assassination that should be expected.

Like I said earlier, if you don't like Seth Rogen's other movies, you probably will not like this movie.  But if you have at least some interest in seeing it, I'd recommend it.  I watched it more out of curiosity from all of the controversy, but since I am a fan of Seth Rogen I probably would have seen this anyway.  If you wanna see it just to spite the North Korean hackers, go ahead and see it.  Support the First Amendment.  Do your patriotic duty and watch a movie that features Seth Rogen hiding a probe in...a certain place. 

So that's 'The Interview', what I believe to be one of the funniest movies I've seen this year.  If you've also had a chance to see this controversial comedy, let me know what you thought of it.  I hope to do this series a bit more in 2015 but we'll see how it goes.