Critics, Schmitics?

The Interview is now a film sensation in Santa Fe and across the country. Is it any good?

On Christmas Day, George RR Martin made a point to personally attend the premiere of a film he lobbied hard to show in his Santa Fe cinema.

"I really hope it's a good movie. I haven't seen it," both the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Albuquerque Journal quoted Martin telling a packed crowd yesterday.

It's a part of the discussion that's getting lost in the twists and turns of developments surrounding The Interview, a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco about how two screwball reporters' assignment to interview North Korean leader Kim Jong-un turns into a mission to assassinate the dictator.

After Sony decided to pull the the film's theatrical release amid hackers' warnings to attack several American movie theaters screening the film, backlash prompted The Interview became an unlikely symbol of the First Amendment.

Martin called Sony's cancellation of the release "a stunning display of corporate cowardice." President Obama opined that "we cannot have a society in which some dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States."

Even pornographer Larry Flynt, who won a case in front of the US Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds in the 1980s, announced that he'll be producing a pornographic parody of the film in protest.

Sony eventually relented and released the film online and through 300 small theaters yesterday, including at Martin's Jean Cocteau Cinema. As reported by the local press, many people attending The Interview's Santa Fe premiere did so to support "free speech" and because the film is now part of "an international incident."

In the wake of this, reviews of the film are largely being left out of the picture

So how are film critics responding to The Interview? Not very well, it turns out. According to Metacritic, The Interview has a an average score of 51 from more than two dozen critics, which ranks the film with receiving "mixed or average reviews."

Slant Magazine's Chris Cabin dismisses The Interview as "two hours of hit-or-miss erection jokes." Variety's Scott Foundas is even harsher, suggesting that the film is "about as funny as a communist food shortage. (SFR's own David Reidel didn't rate the film).

Locally, New Mexican reporter Michael Abatemarco inserted some of his thoughts into his news story about the screening, writing that "the only bombs were jokes that didn't hit the mark."

One of small number of positive reviews comes from Rolling Stone's Peter Travers. Though he gives Rogen and director Evan Goldberg brownie points for "striving to go beyond the dick jokes that spell easy box office returns," even Travers' review seems caught up in the unlikely hype surrounding the film over these past weeks.

"That instinct to try anything for shits and giggles and sticking it to dictatorial assholes is worth fighting for," Travers writes. "Screw Kim if he can't take a joke."

The Interview will continue showing at Santa Fe's Cocteau Cinema in the coming weeks.

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