The Interview
Many viewers decry the movie “The Interview” as crude and stupid. Following the cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment a few weeks before its original release date, the movie has garnered much controversy due to its radical plotline, which includes an assassination of current North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. The hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment released confidential data belonging to the company on Nov. 24, 2014, and the threats ultimately caused the withdrawal of the movie from theaters. Due to the public’s, as well as President Barack Obama’s, criticism of the events as a free speech issue, the movie has been made available online with a limited release in movie theaters.
Alison Willmore, a film critic for the popular online page Buzzfeed, expressed, “The Interview is marked by a true naiveté about international perception and what can be gotten away with in the name of ‘all in good fun.’” Joe Morgenstern of the “Wall Street Journal” calls it, “dumbed-down.”
The movie is certainly filled with many immature jokes, but that is the point. Those who were expecting an intelligent piece of political commentary were disappointed because that is not what this movie is meant to be. Like previous Seth Rogen films, “The Interview” is a deliberately juvenile comedy. Rather than publicize the political structure of North Korea, this film makes fun of the bumbling racist Americans. The film is not intended to focus on political controversies but to use them as a prop. The brand of humor used in this film has more in common with television shows like “Family Guy” than deft political commentaries such as “Veep.”
Most of the criticism from viewers comes from the fact that North Korea poses a real threat to our lives and that the film is a direct correlation of what is occurring today. Although the plot of the film revolves around bringing down the Supreme Leader of North Korea, it also points out how mass media sometimes depends on the entertainment industry. The political controversy over the film has blown out of proportion, and it is imperative to wonder whether more people are concerned about the threat of terrorism or the danger it poses on the suffering relationship between the U.S. and North Korea. It certainly seems like people expected “more” from a political satire comedy film. ♥