Movie Review: The Interview (+trailer)

James Franco and Seth Rogen ham it up in The Interview. The duo's humour is of the love it or hate it variety.

The wait was well worth it ...

This Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy has endured its abundant share of controversy over the past six months as aggressive overtones from North Korea threatened to keep it out of the cinemas.

Eventually, independent cinemas in the US showed it and now New Zealand has taken its chance.

Thankfully, they did allow us to make up our own minds.

If you like the Rogen brand of comedy, you are going to love this. And if you are a North Korean sympathiser, you probably won't.

The Interview pokes fun mercilessly at the tyrannical dictatorship of Kim Jong-un.

In it Dave Skylark (Franco) and his producer Aaron Rapoport (Rogen) run the celebrity tabloid show Skylark Tonight in the United States.

In an attempt to introduce a little more seriousness into their journalism, they try to get an interview with President Kim after they hear he is a fan of the show.

Surprisingly, the invitation works.

When the CIA gets wind of the impending interview, they ask the pair to assassinate the dangerous North Korean leader. And so the fun begins.

Skylark and Rapoport spend some time getting to know President Kim and discover quirky aspects of the man (who apparently doesn't like Katy Perry).

Skylark, who is not the sharpest television personality of all, falls for the president's propaganda and doesn't want to kill him.

Rapoport falls for the president's communications chief and they both still want the leader dead.

The laughs keep coming as do the smutty references.

The farce that is constant throughout the film only heightens as the bid to dethrone or kill President Kim gets nearer.

Seth Rogen doesn't always get it right in the quantity and application of his humour.

But he hits the target in The Interview like a North Korean nuclear warhead.

The Interview
(R16), 112 minutes
Rating: 4/5 stars