Starring: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson
Director: Shawn Levy
Rated: PG-13
Two old school salesmen find themselves out of a job due to the digital age. Together they try to reinvent themselves as interns at Google fighting for a coveted employment opportunity.
Before you see this, there are a couple of things of note. If you are not a fan of Google you need to stay away as this is essentially an almost two hour commercial for how great the google culture is, truly celebrating Googliness. Sergey Brin even makes a couple of cameo appearances in the film.
While the screenplay for the film is credited to both Vince Vaughn and Jared Stern, Vaughn gets the solo credit for the Story. A huge thank you should go out to Rawson Marshall Thurber who wrote Dodgeball which Vaughn starred in back in 04. The Internship is essentially that film redone.
While Vaughn and Wilson are both known for playing essentially the same character in every movie they are in. they do have an immediate chemistry, picking up right where they left off in the Wedding Crashers. Vaughn the fast talking salesmen is write at home here with his wingman Wilson laying on a heavy coat of Texas charm. Your enjoyment is going to solely lie in how well you like them. If either ones schtick has grown weary on you, take heed as there are no surprises in this one.
Once the two lovable losers get to Google they are divided into intern teams, being the oldest with no technical skills at a tech company leaves them immediate outcasts resulting into being thrown into the misfit group.
The poor misfit group must go against the other younger and more skilled intern teams where the winning group of interns gets hired as full time employees. What Billy (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) lack in computer skills they make up for with enthusiasm and teamwork.
All the nerd bases are covered here, from the X-Men references, to the teams playing Quidditch. No nerd stone goes unturned.
There is a romance angle for Wilson and plenty of shenanigans that unfold on the Google campus. Each member of the team embraces who they really are and become better versions of themselves.
Remember when Peter La Fleur quit on his team, only to realize that his team really needed his help and he came back at the last minute to save Average Joe’s Gym? Would it be a spoiler to say that at one point Billy might quit on his intern group?
If only I hadn’t already scene a movie before that involved a group of rag tag losers who through determination and team work were able to overcome the odds, and realize they were not the misfits they though they were that would be a real true underdog story.
Grade – 71
If you never saw Dodgeball – 73
