Get a Job - A review of The Internship

Title: The Internship

Production Company: 20^th Century Fox

Run Time: 119 minutes

Rated: PG-13

Director: Shawn Levy

Stars: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne

Summary: When it comes to comedies, Vaughn and Wilson make a great team. They manage to entertain without offending (much) and even evoke an emotional reaction from the audience. Predictable, but fun nevertheless.

Original comedy ideas are hard to come by these days, so I don’t expect much when I go to the theater to see movies like The Internship. That way, I’m not disappointed and occasionally, I’m pleasantly surprised.

In this case, the latter occurred. This is a by-the-numbers comedy and , while there’s really nothing original here and the ending is quite predictable, it’s just fun to sit back and enjoy the ride getting to the final chapter of this clever little tale.

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play a pair of schlebs who get laid off from their sales job at a watch company. Approaching middle age and uncertain of where they’re going to end up, Vaughn finds the pair an internship position with the internet information giant Google. While there are no guarantees, they could end up with jobs at the somputer firm’s corporate offices.

Needless to say, they’ll encounter a number of tech geniuses who are all half their ages. Some of the kids will work with them, while others are out to succeed at all costs as long as Vaughn and Wilson fail. It’s a classic underdog tale. And while the outcome may surprise few people who see the movie, the way the story unfolds is pretty clever.

In standard pop culture comedy fare, there will be slapstick humor scenes, some questionable humor scenes, the ubiquitous pop culture references and even a verboten interoffice romance. But it’s all in good fun.

Vaughn and Wilson play well off of each other. The former tends to be loud and over the top while Wilson’s humor tends to be more low key and soft spoken. Together, they make a believable sales team, albeit I’d be hard pressed to figure out why anyone would buy anything from this pair of misfits.

The kids that they’re paired with, though, take some getting used to. They work hard to sabotage their older peers at first, then embrace their knowledge and experience when it proves useful. Sending the pair to Stamford University in search of Professor Charles Xavier (of X-Men fame) yields a short but humorous interlude but the film quickly finds its way back to the real story at its heart – that youth may indeed be wasted on the young after all.

Those in search of the usual tasteless humor that tends to proliferate in today’s cinematic scene will be disappointed since there aren’t a lot of bodily function jokes and tasteless sexually charged humor. But if you’re just searching for something to generate some laughs and pass the time for 2 hours, this film is a better than average distraction.

I give The Internship 3-1/2 out of 5 stars.