The Internship

The Internship (2013)
Directed by: Shawn Levy
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 33%

Hello Film Fans!

I hope everyone had a great Father's Day! My girlfriend and I celebrated by taking her dad to a movie. We chose The Internship because it would be appealing to all three of us (they didn't want to see Man of Steel again for some reason). A friend of mine had seen a sneak preview of the movie and said it was cool to see all of the spots in Atlanta (where we live) that they used. I remember seeing Life As We Know It and feeling giddy when I saw the skyline plus I do like Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. What we got is a passable comedy wrapped up in a two hour commercial.

Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Wilson) are struggling in sales postions in an antiquated career. While on an important dinner business meeting the two are informed (via their potential client) that their company has folded. Unemployed and defeated the two struggle to find work amid a young workforce. Nick begins working in a discount mattress store with Kevin (Will Ferrell in a great cameo), and Billy searches for job positions open in the area. It dons on Billy that the two could be interns at Google which could lead to incredible opportunities for both of them. Billy convinces Nick to leave his job and to try for the internship. The two are begrudgingly accepted into the program and are stuck in a team of outcast interns. With the odds stacked against the team, they prove that their quirky collection of misfits is just effective as the "better teams" (including douchey Max Minghella's team). Billy and Nick prove that experience, tenacity, and lots of eighties movies references can get you far in life.

Above, I stated that The Internship is a two hour Google commercial and I stand by that, however that isn't a bad thing. Google is one of the biggest companies on Earth and they got that way for a reason. I use Google all the time for search, email, maps, images, and blogging (duh). If seeing a movie stupid with product placement is not appealing to you then perhaps think twice about seeing one that has the plot of "two guys get an internship with Google". Getting upset about that would be like seeing the Steve Jobs biopic and complaining about all the Apple references. I have stated before that I just don't like to see comedies in the theater because they seldom pay off. I feel that The Internship was just funny enough to warrant the ticket price. Shawn Levy has made an impressive string of good movies (and one really great one): Date Night (the great one), Real Steel, and The Watch were all funny and I saw all of them in the theater (Real Steel was a matinee).

This movie was brilliant.

The Internship is a classic underdog story. We love underdogs because it represents us; real people. Life is an underdog story. We have all these incredible odds stacked against us yet we manage to scrape through life and some of us do it pretty comfortably. Seeing the group of "Outliers" vie for the coveted positions at Google is like watching us or our friends fighting to make a name for themselves. It's escapist in a grounded way. Where the film falls short is some of their characters. I liked Nick but just couldn't bring myself to fully allow myself to care about Billy. Vaughn's signature say-whatever-comes-to-mind-and-roll-with-it type of improv is great throughout, but he is SO over the top enthusiastic that it grates on the nerves. Even Minghella's "villain" Graham was too much of an ass to have made it that far in life (although Jersey Shore was a thing so...maybe it's not impossible). This wasn't my favorite role for any of the actors involved, but it didn't detract from the quality of the story or jokes.

The Internship is funny and worth seeing. If you really like the Wilson/Vaughn duo then I would say see it with a group at a theater if you can find a matinee, otherwise, RedBox or Netflix it once it makes it to DVD. The laughs are there but you won't be in tears because of it.

My Score: 6.5/10