From now on, Seth Rogen should pitch his movie ideas to real writers and allow professional writers to come up with the actual movie. He can act in his movies, but under no circumstances should Seth Rogen be allowed to produce, write, or direct any more films. I say this because the biggest problem I have with The Interview is the instances where it was obvious that Seth Rogen did the writing. Other than that, this is a pretty funny movie.

James Franco was actually just a passenger on this movie as his role was originally supposed to go to Matt Damon, which is weird because Rogen and Franco are supposed to be friends and this is their sixth movie together.

Franco actually does a great job playing the dimwitted Dave Skylark who suddenly comes to his senses long enough to save the people of North Korea. The acting is actually not the problem in this movie, for the most part. The writing is what really turns this movie from a good comedy, into a forgettable “buddy adventure.”

Seth Rogen is infatuated with penis and anus jokes and that routine got old a long time ago. In order to get to the really funny parts in this movie, you have to sit through scenes where James Franco acts out a porn consisting of mostly guys. It was painful to watch, but it almost looked like Franco was having way too much fun performing it.

This is a movie that has banter like this:

North Korean guard lady: “How many times must America screw things up for other countries?”

Dave Skylark: “As many times as it takes!”

Now that is funny. Even the cameos from Eminem and Rob Lowe are absolutely hilarious. There are plenty of funny moments in this movie, but they are broken up by childish penis and anus jokes that are just not funny at all. I guess they would be funny if this was the first time we saw jokes like this, but we have been seeing them for decades and they are not getting any funnier.

Obviously, there was a lot of controversy around this movie which I still find to be silly. But, that being said, if you believe that your leader is indeed a living god, then I can see why this movie would kind of upset you. We have all seen President Obama satirized in a variety of ways and we all laugh at those moments. But if we all thought that President Obama was a living god, then Saturday Night Live would be even less funnier than it is now.

We all knew that Kim Jong-Un and his country had thin skin, even after his Christmas Eve visit to Lockport. All this movie does is take that thin skin and poke it with a really sharp stick. The wounds are real and, I guess, that is kind of funny as well. I mean, if you cannot laugh at the guy in charge, then what is the point?

Throughout this movie, as I do with all Seth Rogen movies, I imagined how much funnier it would be if it had been written by real comedy writers and starred someone other than Seth Rogen. For as annoying as James Franco can be, he actually plays a very funny and effective role in this movie. Rogen is passable, but I get a little tired of Rogen’s played out movie premise of how he kind of gets the girl, but he really doesn’t. Rogen is considered one of the new geniuses of comedy, which is why, in my opinion, comedy is so terrible these days.

There are some very good “laugh out loud” moments in this movie. I recommend that everyone see it at least once because it is a funny movie. But I won’t be buying this on blu-ray simply because I do not understand the need for persistent potty humor to sell a comedy. Maybe Sony did hack themselves to promote this movie because they saw that it wasn’t going to do well in the blu-ray market and they wanted to make Americans think like it was their patriotic duty to see and buy this movie.

I saw this movie relatively free on Netflix not even a month after it was released into theaters. It is not your patriotic duty to see this movie, so don’t think you are doing freedom a favor by sitting through a Seth Rogen flick. But, if you like comedy, then this is a fun little romp that is well worth the low cost to watch on Netflix. Beyond that, you aren’t missing anything.

Rating: 1 ½ out of 5

George N Root III is a drive-in fanatic who doesn’t mind seeing first-run movies on Netflix. It is back to classic reviews next week as this is quite enough Seth Rogen for 2015…and beyond.

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