2.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and somewhat generously, for profanity, sexual content and considerable crude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.7.13
Fans hoping that a reunion with
Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson means another hilarious raunch-fest — along the
lines of Wedding Crashers — are in for a major disappointment.
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| Having forsaken IQ-busting challenges for one evening, Billy and Nick (Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, far right) take their young colleagues — from left, Yo-Yo (Tobit Raphael), Stuart (Dylan O'Brien), Lyle (Josh Brener) and Marielena (Jessica Szohr) — out for an evening of merriment at (where else?) a local strip club. But because this is a PG-13 film, nobody actually strips... |
The Internship is a sweet,
gooey, insubstantial and totally forgettable little fairy tale ... with just
enough coarse humor to stretch the boundaries of its PG-13 rating, while also compromising
the story’s otherwise fluffy tone. Director Shawn Levy clearly doesn’t know how
to approach this project; he’s obviously much more comfortable with overly
broad slapstick such as Night at the Museum and Date Night.
Levy flails amid this film’s
mostly gentle tone, and he further exacerbates the clumsy pacing by
s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g this minor giggle far beyond what the material can support.
Seriously, two hours? Since when do lightweight comedies need anything beyond
95 minutes?
Yes, Vaughn and Wilson riff each other
reasonably well, although I frequently had the impression — glancing at their
eyes, and how their lips seemed primed to twitch — that they desperately wanted
more profane dialogue. They deliver well-timed rat-a-tat exchanges, although
the script — credited to Vaughn and Jared Stern — is both unimaginative and
quite redundant.
Indeed, this story delivers at
least two “Let’s win this one, kids!” speeches too many.
Additionally — and this is a
major problem with many such films — Levy & Co. beat their thin material
into submission, vainly trying to turn minor chuckles (at best) into major
belly-laughs. All concerned seem to believe that if a scene lingers another
minute, or two, or three, that we dense audience members finally will “get” the
joke and laugh harder.
Doesn’t work that way. As the old
saying goes, Levy and his cast repeatedly flog a dead horse. And, frequently,
one that’s already smelling very, very bad.
We meet Billy (Vaughn) and Nick
(Wilson) — glib, silver-tongued salesmen who could offload sand on desert
sheikhs — just as they learn that their company has folded. Out of work, and
for some reason unable (unwilling?) to investigate other sales jobs, they
ponder their fate as dinosaurs in an environment where even whip-smart college
grads aren’t guaranteed employment.
Nick gets minor sympathy from his
sister; Billy gets none from a wife/girlfriend who lingers onscreen only long
enough to dump him. Neither actress is seen again, leading us to wonder why we
met them at all.
While using the world’s
ubiquitous search engine one evening, trolling for jobs, Billy impulsively
decides that Google itself is the answer; after all, its Mountain View
headquarters looks like a plush gig. Never mind that he and Nick haven’t a
whiff of computer training, and we assume they also skipped college en route to
their sales careers.
They somehow bluff their way
through an online interview for an internship that might result in actual
employment (one of many scenes where Vaughn and Wilson overwork thin material).
They nonetheless gain entry as
“diversity” candidates, and of course — upon arrival at Google’s corporate
Googleplex — they’re twice as old and half as smart (if that) as everybody else
in the room. As explained by somewhat imperious intern wrangler Mr. Chetty
(Aasif Mandvi, a note-perfect scene-stealer), the summer’s activities are to be
a competition: Teams of five interns will tackle various challenges, with employment
offered solely to the one team that triumphs.
Nick and Billy wind up on a team
of overlooked (but still quite smart) misfits: the hyper-sensitive Yo-Yo (Tobit
Raphael), who tortures his body after perceived failures; Marielena (Jessica
Szohr), a “cosplay” fan who adores pop-culture sci-fi and fantasy; and Stuart
(Dylan O’Brien), a somewhat withdrawn genius more comfortable staring at his smart
phone than interacting with people.
This group is chaperoned by inexperienced
Google staffer Lyle (Josh Brener), insecure because this is the first time he
has mentored an internship team.
From Day One, their arch-rival
turns out to be Graham (Max Minghella), an obnoxious, condescending jerk who
never misses an opportunity to belittle Billy and Nick. Graham heads his own
team: Call them the overly nasty Slytherins to Billy and Nick’s kinder, gentler
Gryffindors ... a symbolic divide further driven home when one of the Google
challenges turns out to be a ground-based quidditch match.
We never meet any of the other
interns, nor do their various teams figure at all in this story. It’s as if the
other 100 or so people simply don’t exist. For that matter, Graham’s teammates
also never get introduced, nor do they get any dialogue, aside from one poor
guy singled out as “the fat kid.” That's pretty shallow scripting.
Nick immediately notices a
workaholic Google exec (Rose Byrne, as Dana) who shouldn’t give him the time of
day, and doesn’t for awhile, but we know that she’ll eventually change her mind.
Indeed, Wilson and Byrne eventually share a dinner date that turns out to be
one of this film’s few genuinely funny and warm-hearted scenes: a stand-out
moment.
Sadly, it’s one of few. Vaughn
and Wilson never seem comfortable as de facto father figures, and their various
can-do lectures lack conviction. And while it may be amusing the first time
Billy draws his fortune-cookie wisdom from the underdog plot of 1983’s Flashdance, that running gag quickly wears thin.
Naturally, our heroes encourage
their young entourage to “live a little” by taking them to a strip club, a
detour that seems to have wandered in from some other film. The boys can’t get
enough lap dances, while Marielena agreeably tolerates this questionable
environment because she, too, secretly loves the “release” of pole-dancing. Or
something like that.
The young performers are
engaging, even endearing, and they sketch reasonable performances from the
script’s wafer-thin character notes. Raphael’s repressed Yo-Yo is a stitch,
particularly as he “punishes” himself by slowly plucking one eyebrow into
oblivion (a much more palatable alternative to, say, cutting). Szohr channels
some vulnerability as Marielena, probably this story’s closest approximation to
a real human being.
O’Brien thaws credibly as the
initially wary but eventually accommodating Stuart, and Brener’s eager-beaver
Lyle is moderately funny for the way he constantly over-compensates.
Byrne, as well, is appropriately
tart as the wary Dana, naturally suspicious of a smooth talker like Nick; Byrne
delivers her lines quite well. Josh Gad pops up as a silent, bearded “Google
Jedi” who comes to Billy’s aid at an emotionally crucial moment: a cute part
with an amusing payoff.
On the other hand, John Goodman
is wasted in a pointless cameo as Billy and Nick’s initial boss: the guy who
exists mostly to tell them they’ve lost their jobs, after which he exits the
stage.
Far worse, Will Ferrell pops up
as Nick’s sister’s lecherous boyfriend, a mattress salesman who seems
determined to copulate — on his own merchandise — with every babe who wanders
into his store. Ferrell isn’t the slightest bit funny, and — as with the strip
club sequence — this vulgar detour seems to belong to some other film.
As for this film, though, it’s
difficult to shake the notion that it’s little more than a frankly astonishing
valentine to Google: a jaw-dropping example of corporate placement that bodes
ill for the future of such behavior. Given that the Googleplex and its
staffers’ “googliness” are as much a character as any of the human cast
members, this Silicon Valley country club fares better than they do.
In other words, having endured
this inconsequential film, I’d love to work at Google ... but not alongside any
of these twits.
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