The Internship

THE GIST: Shawn Levy's latest film starring the dynamic duo of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn is a far, far cry from their last collaboration, the hilarious WEDDING CRASHERS. The story is seemingly simple: two go-for-broke guys in their 40's are stranded without jobs and look for the most obvious solution to solve their unemployment, an internship at Google. Somehow, though being an unexpected choice, the two get picked for the internship (does the film LEGALLY BLONDE ring a bell?). What ensues is basically MONSTERS UNIVERSITY without the humor, heart, and inventiveness of that fine film. Instead we're left with a film that inspires less "lol" and more "nla", or "not laughing at all". I can't discredit the film for the promising premise that could have showed, and does to a certain extent, the incoming generations lack of personal skills due to technological social interaction or perhaps the struggle of aging and finding a place in the newest era. But no, all of these ideas are certainly too big for the rather dumb script (the characters end up getting in a fist fight at a * bar...remind me what this one is about?) that the actors make work moderately, except for Rose Byrne who seems to find footing somewhere as a Google representative that Wilson pines after. The multitude of ethnicity (besides our two main characters, who are both white) is certainly nice to see on the big screen, and there are times where the film really hints at something kind of good. THE BEST PART: The advertisement-loaded, yet creative and clever final credits sequence. Yes, the best part is the FINAL CREDITS. THE VERDICT: There's so much going wrong with THE INTERNSHIP. Had it been an indie film in the hands of the right creative team and script it could have been something worth watching. Instead, you're almost wishing you were spending the overlong 2 hour runtime investigating the products on screen. So at least Google got their money's worth.