First Hit: Funny enough but the sprinkles of very low-brow bits made it less fun and interesting than it could have been.
Seth Rogen has the ability to make funny films and funny situations. What doesn’t work for me in his films is that he appears to be compelled to make sure he sticks in low-brow dialogue or high-school genre fart jokes and bits that take away from the overall film.
I thought the concept of having Dave Skylark (James Franco) a popular and without a lot of substance television interviewer selected by North Korea’s President Kim Jong-un (Randall Park) to give a once in a lifetime interview was genius. And there are parts of this film that are truly funny and I appreciated those moments. It was just unfortunate that when push came to shove, if Rogan thinks it’s not funny enough he reverts to less intelligent stuff.
Franco at times is really funny and his interviews of Eminem and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were funny and I thoroughly enjoyed him. Rogan as Skylark’s producer Aaron Rappaport as well as writer and co-director was both really good and also misplaced. Lizzy Caplan as CIA Agent Lacey was funny. Park as Kim was really funny and had enough of the "god like" features that helped hold the story together. Diana Bang as Sook who interfaced between Skylark, Rappaport and Kim was really funny. Her bit to overthrow Kim was great. Rogan, Evan Goldberg, and Dan Sterling wrote the story and script which at times was brilliant and other times, sophomoric. Rogan and Goldberg directed this film with both brilliance and stupidity.
Overall: I enjoyed the film more than not – and that, I suppose, is a good thing.