Review: THE INTERNSHIP

THE INTERNSHIP  (COMEDY)
One Star out of Four 
Directed by Shawn Levy
Starring:  Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne, Aasif Mandvi, Josh Brener, Max Minghella
PG-13 for sexuality, some crude content, partying and language.
Verdict:  The reuniting of WEDDING CRASHERS co-stars Vaughn and Wilson provides an occasionally amusing bromance, but yields few laughs, while the film as a whole relies lazily on orthodox formula and cliches of the worst sort, wrapped up in a tired crossing of extended fish-out-of-water situations and nerds learning to build confidence, stretched out over a much too long two hours.  And, unless you didn't catch it from the advertising, it sets a whole new bar for product placements in film as a $58 million commercial for Google.
You may enjoy THE INTERNSHIP if you enjoyed: DATE NIGHT, THE WATCH, WEDDING CRASHERS, DRILLBIT TAYLOR

Almost three years ago, David Fincher made THE SOCIAL NETWORK, unofficially dubbed "The Facebook Movie", and it was one of the greatest films I have ever seen.  Now Shawn Levy heads up THE INTERNSHIP; a film that could be called "The Google Movie" but would more appropriately be called "The Google Advertisement", and it is downright bad.  Of course, I'm not comparing a "Frat Pack" comedy to THE SOCIAL NETWORK, but it was a good lead in;  compared to other "Frat Pack" (in reference to the cast of OLD SCHOOL and other comedic actors who regularly appear together in raunchy, irreverent comedies, i.e. Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Paul Rudd and others) comedies though, it still fares very poorly.
The plot, thin though it is, finds accomplished salesmen Billy McMahon (Vaughn, who also co-wrote the screenplay) and Nick Campbell suddenly unemployed when they learn from a client that their business has closed, leaving them obsolete in a digital age.  Unwilling to just give up on the dream, Billy convinces Nick to join him in applying for a highly competitive intern program at the Google corporate offices which may lead to a job.  Thanks to a highly improbable pity vote, their applications are accepted and they find themselves the most misfitted of a team of misfits in the competition, including their team leader and guidance counselor at Google, super-awkward nerd Lyle (Brener), angsty cynic Stuart (Dylan O'Brien), sex-obsessed Neha (Tiya Sicar) and self-critical mama's boy Yo-Yo (Tobit Raphael).  Over the much overdrawn two hour running time, the team of misfits have all kinds of wacky escapades while they stumble through every intern test, and a rival intern (Max Minghella, who was in THE SOCIAL NETWORK) bullies them every step of the way.  Vaughn's script (co-written with Jared Stern) and Levy's direction hit every note in the done-to-death team of misfits formula, including the notes that many other inane comedies would find too contrived.
Vaughn and Wilson make a likable duo and are both very energetic in their performances, but the riffing could sometimes use a little reigning in (which Levy would never do), and very few of the jokes hit their desired mark, whether due to incompetent staging, lack of originality or just plain blandness.  I should confess that I felt that the pair's big hit, WEDDING CRASHERS, was overrated, although far funnier than this.  Will Ferrell gets a cameo as Wilson's crass brother-in-law who sells mattresses, and depending on whether you enjoy the sometimes-divisive Ferrell, that's moderately amusing (I laughed a little).
Where the film becomes wildly irritating is with Nick and Billy's teammates at Google; extreme social outcasts intended to be endearing but whose over-the-top, shrill personalities are hopelessly unlikable.  These characters are used in the mistaken belief that awkwardness and extreme oddity equals humor, when in fact, it just feels awkward.  One real headache-inducing scene involves a "Quidditch" game challenge between the intern teams, and I defy you to sit still and enjoy the embarrassment taking place onscreen without any discomforted shifting.

The first time a pair of old guys taught a group of young, dismissive misfits to enjoy life and have self-confidence.

Comedy is probably the most subjective and difficult genre there is, because peoples senses of humor depend on their personal experience, so some people think some things are funnier than others, and a lot of comedies that are just too dumb during the day become unreasonably funny at three o' clock in the morning.  Comedies have a much higher fail rate, and a comedy film has to work both in a story/character department like everything else, as well as the gag department.  As fragile as comedy is then, it's odd and perhaps a bit unfortunate that failures of comedy land so much harder than any other failure, and it's so much easier to hate a bad comedy than any other sort of "bad" movie.  On the other hand, THE INTERNSHIP doesn't seem self-aware enough to recognize itself as a crummy commercial, such as the way the product placement-heavy TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY played the advertising as the film's biggest joke.  THE INTERNSHIP is annoyingly sincere in its praise of Google, and what's worse are the prominent references to FLASHDANCE.  I hate FLASHDANCE.
On a side note: Maybe it's been a while since I've seen a PG-13 comedy, but THE INTERNSHIP seems to be pushing the border in the sexual humor department, especially in a prolonged strip club sequence that shows an awful lot and has a not-so-brief running gag involving ejaculation.  Admittedly though, that running gag does include some funny deadpan comments from Wilson's character.