I’ll be honest, I did not like the look of The Internship the first time it appeared in film trailer browsers. It looks like something crawled out of the last decade with an attention-grabbing but rather clichéd concept with two old bucks of the comedy genre leading the charge with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Yet there’s something endearingly entertaining about it all, I just can’t put my finger on it…
Finding their sales company closed down and leaving them out of work, technology fearing Billy and Nick (Vaughn, The Watch and Wilson, Midnight In Paris) blag themselves an interview with Google. Not for your usual job – instead it’s for an internship which could lead to a job. Scraping through the online interview, the pair find themselves outmatched by the techno-friendly and intelligent college graduates and use their sales smarts to improve themselves, win the heart of the hard working career woman, teach their intern group a thing or two about living and provide an alternative ‘googliness’ to the usual standard from Google.
After his last outing in The Watch, Vaughn looks more enthusiastic in this role. It may help that he’s writing and producing The Internship so it’s his show but least he’s eradiating enthusiasm over to other cast members and the like. Wilson is his usual cute southerner self but most of the time I was left distracted by his broken nose – he must have damaged it right before filming because it’s the most notable I have ever seen it. With this being their big reunion of the Wedding Crashers, it’s just okay and doesn’t hit the joy of the last time they teamed up.
The kids or fellow interns on their ‘loser’ team include a geek who uses his phone constantly and just don’t give a F (Dylan O’Brien, Teen Wolf), a self punishing, mother pleasing Asian (Tobit Raphael) and a weird geek BDSM fetishist, out there, brightly dressed girl (Tiya Sircar). The five are headed up by insecure team manager Lyle (Josh Brener, Big Bang Theory) which at least look the part of the role. To be honest, despite having some personal interesting traits, it’s stock stereotyped characters and storyarcs abound for our hapless misfits.
Fundamentally, there isn’t much wrong plot wise – it’s just we’ve seen this movie 10 times before. Story steps follow in order of:- Introduction to heroes, concept set up, love interest, problem, failure, problem, unorthodox solution, doubts to heroes, resolution, final task, unlikely win, happy ending. Now this isn’t The Internship’s fault exactly because it’s a tried and tested concept that’s worked for years in 2000’s comedies so executives are going to stick to this same format. But with changing audience wants and tastes, you’ll be left wanting more, a lot more even, here. There’s still a place from not too ancient history comedy actors like Vaughn and Wilson but it’s sure not in a rehash of the former duo in Wedding Crashers in exactly the same story, save swapping the main concept around.
Of course, being one of those ‘Frat Pack’ films you expect a cameo from one of the others yet for a film grounded in reality like The Internship it seems silly for Will Ferrell’s character to turn up as a whacky pervert with Arabic tattoos on his neck. Yes this is a comedy film but all of the humour is realistic to a point. Throwing something as out there as Ferrell even for a short period of time in this film doesn’t do much, nor is it overly humorous.
Speaking of which, the humour and jokes leave a lot to be desired. Typical making fun of the overweight, countryist and race jokes are nothing new and you will get pretty bored quickly. I wonder if Vaughn has something against educated interns because they’re presented as unsocialable freaks that need the guidance of real world experienced Billy and Nick to guide them along into doing anything fun. Case in point, it’s hinted the four youngsters they’re with have never been to a strip club or drunk before until they take them out. Fair enough for one of them as that would work with the character but the other three? No not buying it. Really don’t get the clear undertones in taking the mick of the technically clever kids here. Jealous much maybe?
At least The Internship isn’t an ugly film to look at on screen and, being presumably filmed at Google’s headquarters, there’s a lot of eye catching colours and slides between floors in the building to make you take note. Director Shawn Levy (Real Steel) is a dab hand at this in experience with the Night At The Museum movies – busy films with lots going on but the focus point is always clear.
You maybe a bit sick of all the ‘googliness’ after sitting through the near two hour runtime. Given it’s trying to come across as an ideas factory of sorts, the more you get into the film, the more real life the jobs become. One of the tasks our heroes have to go through is tech support aka call centre schlub. I do this in my real life. Why don’t I work for Google? There’s also a sales task that even the worst The Apprentice candidate would win. This comes after some really technology based ‘design an app’ and debugging tasks which I expect from the search engine based company. Quite a massive shift to the ‘everyman’ role later on in the film is odd – is it meant to come across as an advert for Google? It’s hard not to think of it as anything but.
I’m not so sure if Google actually has it’s own Muggle Quidditch field (although given the amount of money they have, they probably do) but it seems so dated to have Harry Potter referenced when audiences haven’t seen a Quidditch game on the big screen in a couple of years. In fact, thinking about it, this film would have been perfect for a release… 5 years ago. The idea to play off the comedy duo of Vaughn and Wilson again after Wedding Crashers is fine but we’ve all moved on since.
I’d be lying if I said The Internship didn’t have a certain charm but it’s nothing new at all and the film comes across as if it’s five years too late being released. Still the Vaughn/Wilson double act tagging with a Levy helm has it’s appeal and there’s still a bit of life in the 2000’s comedy genre. A bit.
