I watched this movie just to say I did. Now I’m reviewing it for the same reason.

What’s It About? A third-rate talk show host and his producer start out with a plan to air a live interview with Kim Jong-un, and end up as part of a secret government mission to assassinate him.

STRAIGHT UP: Not especially insightful or funny. 5.5/10

What I Liked

The North Korea thing – Yeah, it’s just a gimmick, but it got me to buy a ticket, and I think it does give the film a feeling of freshness.

Solid comedy leads – James Franco and Seth Rogen are pretty funny guys, and I got a laugh out of about half of their jokes. That’s not a bad hit-or-miss record, even though there isn’t any one crowning moment of hilarity.

Over-the-top moments – That said, a few wild scenes had potential, but were cut short. Franco riding a tank, Rogen fighting a tiger, Rogen attempting to have sex with a poison patch stuck on his hand – longer versions of these scenes, or more in the same spirit, would have gone a long way.

What I Disliked

Dave Skylark – It’s important for the audience to like, or at least feel empathy for, characters in a comedy. As written, Franco’s vapid, self-absorbed Hollywood propagandist is just not likable.

Trying too hard for laughs – Some of the jokes in this movie are funny. The ones that aren’t are inevitably the ones that are drawn out or repeated to the point that it’s just embarrassing to watch.

Predictable routines – Underneath the gimmick, this is a by-the-numbers buddy comedy with an armory of Chekhov’s Guns, to boot. It’s pretty easy to guess who will be doing what, and when.

The finale – The action-heavy climax is all in good fun, but it felt disappointing to me… probably because Franco’s character predicts how the whole thing will unfold during the movie’s first act. I also question the wisdom of building one of the film’s biggest gags around an already-stale Katy Perry song.

CLOSING THOUGHT: I waited to review The Interview until the controversy surrounding its release had died down, in order to better focus on its merits as a film. Now that the time has come, I’m disappointed to discover that this movie just doesn’t have much to offer. Franco and Rogen are fine here, but they’ve done better work with funnier screenplays. There’s plenty of satire leveled at Kim Jong-un, but it’s all repeated from somewhere else. None of this material will challenge or change the audience’s perceptions of North Korea or its relations with America and the world. There isn’t even any of the tongue-in-cheek uber-patriotism that made Team America: World Police a cult classic a decade ago. Ultimately, my issue is that The Interview was bound to be a high-profile film – and will likely go down in history as one of the more notable films of this decade – but it doesn’t have the decency to be meaningful, well-written, or even memorably funny. For such a notorious film, it isn’t even much of a conversation piece; it’s only worth re-visiting for academic reasons.