What a crappy movie. Realistically, I didn't have very high expectations, and like most of the people who saw it, I only watched it because of the controversy around the Sony hack that was attributed to a faction of hackers who were reportedly upset over the depiction of Kim Jong-un in the movie. I think they should have been upset about Team America, but this movie just wasn't worth the effort. I can't imagine it would have been a success without the intervention of the Nork hackers.
I have little expectation for a movie that has Seth Green in it. In this movie, he co-writes, co-acts, and co-produces. So, the writing is crappy, the acting is crappy, and the production... is actually probably better than this movie deserves, so at least it's not a complete loss. And Seth actually doesn't do that bad of a job with his own acting, but he always plays the same character, and that character is Seth with a different name and he usually pretends to have an actual job that he's usually pretty crappy at.
I don't really know why I ever had respect for James Franco. He has had a few good roles where he did a good job, but he picks movies based on some ephemeral criteria that boggles the mind. On top of that, his good performances appear to be the exceptions to the rule. This movie is NOT one of those exceptions. He joyfully plays a complete moron, and he overdoes it in every way. He has a crappy character that was written like crap, and he plays it like crap.
As for the story, they decided to try and take Dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea and make it a comedic spy movie where James is a terrible TV interviewer (with his producer, Seth) who has a big fan in Kim Jong-un. After some Nork sword rattling, they manage to get an interview with The Supreme Leader, and the CIA comes to them with a plan to kill Kim.
The premise can't be taken seriously, and the characters can't be taken seriously. The situations can't be taken seriously, and - worst of all - references to this being a comedy can't be taken seriously. It's not a funny movie. It's not an interesting movie. It's not a good movie.
Directing was not good
Story was crap
Acting was crap
Dialogue was crap
Movie was crap
Bottom Line: North Korea shouldn't have bothered complaining about it, and President Obama shouldn't have bothered prodding Sony into releasing it.
0.5/5