What to watch: The Interview (2014)

First off let me start by saying that if you are going into this with all of it's hype in mind you're going to be disappointed. People don't seem to understand that all the buzz around this movie was not for it's quality but for it's actual release. It is still uncertain who is behind the Sony hack attack but one of the main demands was to have the film pulled due to it's controversial depiction of dictator Kim Jong Un. Sony shortly pulled the plug and many thought we'd never see the movie and claimed that nobody and  especially terrorist have the right to censor a form of artistic expression. The reason this movie is so anticipated is more out of protest against censorship and because people want to see what was so "controversial". Another thing was the rating people were giving it on iMDB for example, the film had a 10/10 and people misinterpreted this as people saying it was a great film but the reason behind this was to show that people cared about the movie and they wanted to see it. So that's what all of that was about now let's get into the actual movie review. 

There's only one way to review The Interview for me and that is comparing it to two other films, one is Pineapple Express and the other is This is the End. If you've seen either of those two movies you're familiar with this type of comedy. This movie is Seth Rogen and James Franco playing themselves in yet another crazy situation the only difference is this time they don't smoke their weight in weed. The overall plot is simple and the jokes are decent throughout the entire movie and I didn't feel bored at any time during the movie. The pacing was okay and the music did standout as it tends to do in these movies but one of my major problems with the movie was the lighting, I kept wondering why certain scenes were so unnecessarily dark and in most scenes only parts of people's faces were visible due to shadows. I'm not sure if that was an artistic decision or if someone forgot to fix that but to me it felt fairly noticeable. 

How does this compare to Pineapple Express and This is the end? Well it's not as funny and not as memorable either. The Interview relied more on the chemistry between the Skylark and Un characters and those two were great together but a lot of the rest of the film is predictable and there doesn't seem to be any wow factor. One of the best things about this movie is the Skylark Tonight interviews though, eminem has a cameo within the first five minutes of the movie and I'm so glad it wasn't shown in the trailer because in my personal opinion it was the funniest joke in the movie. I would've love to see more of that part of the story but that would've been asking to much since it would've been irrelevant to the story. 

Do you like Pineapple Express and This is the end? If you do then go see this and even if you only like them a little then at the very least rent this. If you didn't then this isn't going to be any different and I recommend you skip unless you really care about the fact that this film was almost pulled and you want to show that we here in the U.S. take our right to free speech very seriously. 

Rating: Full price (or rental)