I may
respect him as a fellow fan of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, but when it comes
to his big screen career, I have grown tired of Vince Vaughn’s antics and
one-shot characters over the years; and I have never been all that entertained
by Owen Wilson beyond a few of his outlying projects. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone
when I reveal that I detested 2005’s Wedding
Crashers and am still baffled by its classification as a strong comedy;
needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled when it was announced that these two would
be reuniting in The Internship. The plot focus on recently unemployed
salesman may have been timely, but the adoration and “inside-look” of Google
may have come about nearly a decade too late.
Early trailers focused almost exclusively on a single joke highlighting
out-of-place characters, and release posters were wildly uninventive, so
marketers seemed to have put together a pretty half-hearted effort to drive
audience interest. With zero
expectations and only mild curiosity related to diversifying my film review
portfolio, I decided to see if The
Internship could do anything to reverse my opinion regarding Vince Vaughn
and Owen Wilson.
As
counterintuitive as it may be to admit, the reality is that while The Internship may deliver a formulaic
and altogether predictable story, the comedy in-and-of itself remains charming
and genuinely inspiring. The first act
of the film is undeniably slow, but once Vaughn and Wilson finally arrive on
the Google Campus and start interacting with younger interns, overall quality
improves tremendously. Vaughn and Wilson
interact well together, but it is Vaughn who stands out due to his finally
being given a character and setting that perfectly complements his familiar
cinematic personality…combine that dynamic with supporting rising stars, and
the end result is tremendously enjoyable.
Even if you aren’t overtly “wowed” by the extended commercial praising
the innovation of the gargantuan search engine, there are still enough clever
jokes to keep things lighthearted. So,
while The Internship may not
represent a soaring success, it is still a fun comedy that represents the best
work these top-billers have put out in years.
Overall
Recommendation: Medium
