The Interview may just be the biggest, or even greatest, marketing campaign ever to grace the silver screens, from the hacking of Sony leading to the film's cancellation (due to cinemas fears of hacking threats), to the same company's instant u-turn on their decisions, by releasing the film in limited theaters but everywhere else online. The end result of all this has definitely created a ton of hype for the film, even for those who had absolutely no interest in the first place.

Directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, who the duo also directed last year's excellent comedy This Is The End and produced this year's mediocre Bad Neighbours, The Interview may be their most daring production yet, in the form of a satirical comedy bent on the assassination of a living Asian leader. If the previously mentioned movies are not your forte, you'll best be avoiding this, but if you do enjoy the usual crude/sick humour seen in many Rogen/Apatow comedies, The Interview is right in your wheelhouse.

The main players in The Interview are best buddies James Franco and Seth Rogen, the former playing David Skylark, an eccentric talk show host, while Rogen plays the production manager to Skylark, Aaron Rapoport. Upon knowing that North Korean leader Kim Joung-un is a fan of the show, Skylark and Rapoport organises an interview with Kim in North Korea, but are intersected by the CIA with a view to assassinate the leader. The scenery of North Korea depicted in The Interview sure look like the real deal (based on quick Google Image searches), from architecture marvels such as the Paty Foundation/Soviet monument seen in the movie's first scene, to the plainly painted buildings on the streets of Pyongyang (fake grapefruit!).

Some of the jokes delivered by Franco and Rogen are more of a hit or miss, like they're just spatting out jokes in hope that it'll stick (but when it does, the result is usually hilarious - see the honeycombing jokes). The importance of good jokes is also paramount given the film's runtime. At 112 minutes, while seemingly long on paper, feels relatively short-lived in The Interview, as the plot tends to drag on for some weak and unnecessary scenes, especially in the earlier portions of the film, indicating some pacing problems for a rather straightforward plot (it took way too long to get till our first meeting with Kim Jong-un).

The bright spark here would be the supreme leader of North Korea himself, as played by Randall Park, who sheds light on the lighter side of Kim Jong-un, displaying him as a misunderstood character with a pension for basketball and a Katy Perry song (awesome, by the way). In a surprising twist, Park's portrayal of Kim was rather down-to-earth, and like Skylark, makes you have second thoughts about assassinating him for the sake of world peace. Also adding to the cast are Lizzy Caplan as a CIA agent, Diana Bang as Sook, and an array of cameos, most notably the guests on Skylark's shows, with Eminem and Rob Lowe serving up hilarious fictional versions of themselves (wouldn't look out of place had they been in This Is The End).

In the end, The Interview is not exactly worth the mass hacking or the controversy that surrounds it, though I have to admit it was pretty funny throughout. As for the depiction of North Korea, the level of condemnation did not warrant the mass hysteria many people thought it portrayed on news channels. Remove the political lampooning and it's what you get is the usual silly comedy films, which the usual humour and raunchiness expected in a Seth Rogen film, and I believe many wouldn't be complaining (I had fun watching it). Maybe next time, when someone does a film lampooning an overseas dictator hellbent on destruction, they best be using a fictional figure.

6.0/10