The Interview is not worth going to war over. Hopefully we won’t have to one day send a Terminator back from an apocalyptic future to erase The Interview from Seth Rogen’s filmography. If that does come to pass, the world will not be missing out on one of his classic movies. So the irony of North Korea attempting to shut the film down, is that they gave the movie more attention than it otherwise would have drawn. This is not a meticulous deconstruction of a tyrannical ruler for western audiences to rally against. This is a Seth Rogen movie…If you wanted a silly goofball comedy that vaguely touches on pop-culture and a heinous overseas regime, while spewing endless fart and dick jokes. Well this is your movie… And seriously, were you expecting anything less?

The Interview is a satirical spy comedy about a bottom-feeding TV personality and his producer who in an attempt to make real news, somehow manage to score an interview with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un. The two have made a name for themselves by doing crass stories on celebrities. Franco’s character Dave Skylark, is an interviewer who specializes in sensationalism, who has a knack for getting famous people to admit their secrets. When the CIA catches wind that the two will be getting a face-to-face meeting with the tyrant, who happens to be a huge fan of Skylark, they recruit the two to do a covert assassination. What follows is Rogen and Franco in a crude and sophomoric version of Get Smart.

The Interview does make an attempt to work on many different levels. It is a satire, but it doesn’t just stick to skewering the North Korean leader. The movie begins its attention on American celebrity culture and the public’s morbid curiosity with seeing its heroes fall, or at least to be taken down a notch. Much of the film’s humor actually focuses on the ridiculousness of the American media, who is personified in Franco’s Skylark.

Rogen’s character, Aaron Rappaport, is a producer that isn’t happy with their classless production and wants to do something that will validate him with his other TV producing peers. Once the duo arrive in North Korea, Aaron acts as the chaperone for the barely functional Skylark. From there the film takes a series of predictable turns and begins to feel more like a long series of sketches, than a tightly made film.

This is ultimately a buddy movie in the vein of Spies Like Us. Rogen is the voice of reason and the straight-man to Franco’s bouncing off the walls portrayal of Skylark. That is perhaps one of the more frustrating parts of the movie. Franco plays Skylark so broad, that it really does lessen the stakes and comedy. The world that Rogen and co-director Evan Goldberg have created is cartoonish enough on its own and doesn’t feel real, which was the right tone for the movie. However, Franco’s performance is oddly over the top and self-aware and it does become distracting, particularly as the film goes on.

The release of the movie is the ironic next chapter in the real North Korea cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. The irony is that if North Korea had simply sat on their hands, this movie would have surely come and gone without most putting much thought into it. It is an entertaining film, but not quite on the level of their recent work, such as Neighbors and This is the End. And it certainly doesn’t have the intention or intelligence to destabilize a foreign country. The Interview delivers some laughs, but ultimately is an average comedy.