There was once a day in which Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn could bring in the big bucks, when they were the go-to guys for comedy. But that time is past, and all we’re left with now is the occasional sight of them trying to recapture they former box office glory. The latest film from the duo is The Internship, a film that is not only a huge sickening advert for all things Google related, but also one that is completely and utterly without any redeeming quality. From the typical red-text-on-white-background poster to awful moral at the end of the story, The Internship is less enjoyable than a root canal.
Billy McMahon (Vaughn) and Nick Campbell (Wilson) are casualties of the current economic crisis, and are losing job after job. After reaching his breaking point, Billy applies both of them for an internship at Google. After a weird interview that tests their creativity, the pair- along with other interns- are put into groups and pitted against each other. The winners all receive full-paid jobs at Google. Through challenges such as creating apps and finding advertisers, the groups must show the big guys at Google that they are what the company is looking for.
Of course, the group Billy and Nick find themselves in are made up of various people (aka stereotypes) which include Stuart, a hipster with a punchable face, Yo-Yo, an Asian American with a very stereotypical mother and Neha, a sex addicted Indian American girl who has never had sex before. Oh and the team is led by Lyle, a typical nerdy guy who is the butt of many jokes. Everyone in the film- apart from the lovely Rose Byrne, that is- is utterly unbearable, and are mostly incredibly offensive stereotypes.
The film is just not funny, plain and simple. From half hearted dick jokes to the look Billy and Nick give Lyle when he extends his fist for a bump and says, “Pound it!”, The Internship didn't even give me a chuckle. Apart from obvious script woes, the films greater problems mainly fall on the shoulders of the cast. Everyone involved just seems disinterested; especially Wilson and Vaughn who I'm sure are only doing this for the money. I can imagine it now: The two of them are just waiting by the phone, hoping there'll either be a call for Wedding Crashers 2 or that the debt collector won't break their legs this month. But no, out of nowhere they get a call from Google, and thus kicks off one of the worst films of all time, that just also happens to be crammed with Google praise.
Plus, while I know a film like this shouldn't be held accountable for sending out a shitty moral message, how it handles some of the characters is just repugnant. Billy and Nick bring Lyle to a strip club, ply him full of drink and have him fall in love with a stripper to loosen him up, they get Yo-Yo’s few thousand lap-dances in which he clearly... ummm... enjoys himself so he can stand up to his mother, they show Stuart real female breasts so he stops checking his phone and Neha, well they basically tell her, “you'll find the right guy to have sex with one day, honey”. This half hour of the film in which Billy and Nick “help” their teammates is just truly awful, awful stuff. It's basically saying to the audience, “Don't be such a nerd! Chill out, get shit faced and pay some woman to grind up against you.” The meaning of life according to The Internship, folks.
The reason why I love writing for this blog is the fact that we're very adamant on writing honest reviews. That doesn't happen too often with other publications, I can tell you. So with that in mind I'll tell you this- The Internship is a train crash of a film, a film that was only created with money in mind, a film so devoid of humour, passion and likeability that you'd be better off staring at a wall for two hours. It's trash. Then again, it does have one redeeming feature: Rose Byrne still remains hot.
The Internship gets fired with a 1/10.
Denis Murphy
The Internship at CeX
