Google Keyword Search: Internship with Wasted Potential.
I wanted to like this movie. I wanted to like this so much. I loved the concept. I loved the idea of this movie and the fact that Google was on board to let the mega-company be the backdrop of a film having fun with, or poking fun at, them … or potential fun … or some fun … or, uh, any fun.
Owen Wilson (Nick) and Vince Vaughn (Bill) play a couple of trying-to-get-back-to-work middle-age dudes who find themselves in the high tech world of Google in an internship with many others, battling and competing for a job at the end of the day. There you go, in a nutshell, that is The Internship.
It feels like the plot serves more as a motivation to allow Wilson and Vaughn to have fun in some sketch comedy bits, but on the whole, it is lacking “the fun.” Now granted, there is some funny, but it hardly sustains over the length of the movie.
The movie ends up being a series of bits. Some of them work, some of them don’t and some of them are just down right boring, attempting to move the plot forward, but instead stalling it out.
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are actors who, undeniably, can be outrageously entertaining when given the right role. And, from the trailers, I thought this was going to be one of those Swinger, Old School, Dodgeball-style of roles for Vaughn. He is an incredibly likeable and funny actor when given the right opportunity, but The Internship is full of lost opportunity. The same goes for Wilson, who is great in movies like The Big Year, Zoolander and Bottle Rocket, but is terribly mundane and affable, and nothing more here.
Pointless and wasted cameos abound (Rob Riggle, Will Ferrell and others), but those actors are not given much to do with their limited opportunities, which, I believe is in complete conflict with what Google has to offer – opportunity. Director Shawn Levy and company take this opportunity for something with potential and more-or-less waste it.
There are some entertaining moments and the movie moves along at an acceptable pace. Much like a real world intern who doesn’t get the job, this is less about what the movie didn’t do and more about what it could’ve done.
Grade: C+
Review by Gordon Shelly, special to Influx Magazine
