I saw 'The Interview' and lived to blog about it

The poster is better than the movie

Last night I finally got around the watching the infamous comedy The Interview, which is currently streaming on Netflix.

Nearly 24 hours later, I think I can safely say it wasn't worth all the fuss.

I have a special attachment to this movie because when the scandal over its release was at its zenith, my reporting on the topic provided me with the opportunity to make my TV debut.

Now, after all the hysteria over the film has died down, the movie is getting seen for what it really was -- a dumb, innocuous comedy that will be remembered more for the uproar it inspired instead of its actual content.

It was neither as bad as I expected it to be, nor was it very good. Its thin premise is more of a vehicle for sight gags than political commentary and it represents more wheel-spinning for its stars Seth Rogen and James Franco.

Yes, this is yet another film where Rogen plays a put-upon, schlubby guy who inexplicably attracts a stronger, far more attractive woman (this time the stunning but under-utilized Diana Bang) and Franco plays a hyperactive buffoon who is willfully ignorant about almost everything and yet somehow lands on his feet, oh, and he gets a girl too.

Their chemistry, which has worked in Freaks and Geeks and This Is the End, feels stale here. We get it, your bromance has homoerotic undertones. There is nothing new that either of them are doing here, although Franco seems to be more aggressively obnoxious than ever before.

What do we make of Franco as an actor? He seemed to be embracing seriousness with 127 Hours, he was the weakest link in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and then he pops up in noisy junk like this doing an exaggerated parody of himself. I don't get it.

James Franco and Seth Rogen in The Interview

At least Rogen knows his limits. And at first, it appears, so does the movie. It opens with an undeniably funny cameo from Eminem, and some amusing jokes about pop culture and the media.

But despite top-notch production values and a terrific soundtrack, the movie never really clicked with me.

There are too many jarring tonal shifts, particularly repulsively violent gag towards the end and when the movie tries to actually add some commentary about North Korean human rights abuses, it feels a little forced. The movie mostly avoids racial stereotypes, but that doesn't mean its portrayal of the Communist nation isn't problematic.

That said, the movie is watchable, I chuckled a few times -- I just don't know why it needed to be made. What were Rogen and company trying to say with this movie. Couldn't it have been a fictional character? Did they have to (SPOILER ALERT) kill him off in the end? I found myself asking these questions a lot as this overlong comedy played out before me.

It seems like they started with their outrageous premise but then developed little else. And Rogen and Franco aren't adept enough comedians to sustain my interest by dragging out shtick -- like repeating the phrase "they hate us cause they ain't us" ad nausea.

This film should never have been pulled from theaters. It probably would have flopped either way (even the trailers weren't very funny) and at least we wouldn't appear to be caving to what appears to have been North Korean hackers. Now that most Americans can watch the film in the comfort of their own home they'll see that it's essentially an Adam Sandler movie with a bigger budget and they'll wonder what Sony was so afraid of.

Personally, I'm glad I didn't waste my money on a ticket.