Director Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen
Staring James Franco, Seth Rogen, Randall Park
Rated MA
Score 1.5/6
Dave Skylark and producer Aaron Rapoport run the celebrity tabloid show “Skylark Tonight.” When they land an interview with a surprise fan, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, they are recruited by the CIA to turn their trip to Pyongyang into an assassination mission.
Granted, he has only three directing credits to his name so far (actually the third movie is still in production), so the rule of five is in effect for the directing team Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, so hopefully they will improve and mature as a directors. However, at the moment it seems that as a director there are times when Rogen and Goldberg cannot find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight.
You’ve all heard about The Interview right? It’s the movie that on December 16, 2014, the Guardians of Peace threatened terrorist attacks against cinemas that played it. This was followed by a strong debate about freedom of speech and whether or not it was right to cave to the demands of the hackers. Does that refresh your memory?
Well even though the freedom of speech is indeed a wonderful freedom that everybody should enjoy and go on to enjoy. However as it turns out, this really was not the movie to go the mats about. In truth, this should have been a direct to DVD release (given the overall quality of the story I would like to think that I would have had the presence of mind not to buy the DVD). Okay, I might be a little biased against Rogen’s directing endeavours. I’ve tried to watch This is the End, but could not bring myself to watch all of it, so for the record no I haven’t reviewed it. So I went into this with at best low expectations, to be honest I tried to talk myself out of from even going to this one.
Credit where credit is due Rogen and his buddies actually managed to cram a few laughs into this movie, but there was not enough to sustain me throughout the movie and as for the Lord of the Rings References, there is such a thing as flogging a dead horse.
