If satire is intended in the screenplay of The Internship, it’s largely washed out by the film’s incessant mounting of a worshipful tribute to the gods of Google. Using deliberately drab color schemes in the film’s early scenes, director Shawn Levy ups the ante to only the brightest colors once his characters reach their destination of the company’s headquarters to begin serving internships. His film, sporadically amusing and regularly corny, makes no bones about spinning the tech giants in the best possible figurative light as well.
We first witness our heroes, Vince Vaughn (he also co-wrote) and Owen Wilson, attempting to make a big sale of, um, wristwatches. (Rumor has it hula-hoops and beepers were first floated as possible ideas.) If you have trouble buying the wristwatch thing, you’ll soon be asked to also swallow that neither of these guys has a laptop at home. Check out the Wedding Crasher dudes doing their cyber interview with Google not only at a public library but in the children’s room no less. This just after their wristwatch company boss John Goodman fails to let them know the company has gone out of business. Also el foldo are these dudes’ female relationships once they become unemployed. This frees up Wilson to strike up a fling with one of the Google managers (Rose Byrne) since every formulaic movie needs a romantic interest. And villains:
The perennially annoying Aasif Mandvi plays a didactic, showboating group leader, eager to insult our middle-aged Google Crashers. Max Minghella plays a young, mean and smarmy rival, also eager to insult the old guys. Then there’s a mixture of racially, ethnically and tempermentally diverse young interns who actually know something about technology. When it comes to Vaughan and Wilson imparting life lessons as a substitute for their paucity of any digitally impactful skills, the film shortchanges the viewer. We’re asked to take a leap of faith that these kids would actually be in any way enthralled by this dumb duo. Also, that Vaughan would be able to do a one-night tutorial with a mysterious character called “Headphones” and go from basics nincompoop to studied tech swami.
Now 17 years after the delightful Swingers, Vaughn at least has made a better film than last year’s dismal The Watch. The Internship, while not quite jelling, actually stabilizes during its second half. Since its first half is rather consistently flat, this helps harbor the illusion that it has actually recovered and saved itself from being lumped into that outsized pool of mediocre multiplex comedies. Which would be wrong.
2 1/2 Fledgling Google Crashers (out of 5)