The Internship - Did someone say ‘Google?’

One of the main problems with making a film which utilises a well-known brand as part of the story is that you get a little sick of the product after a while.  Having spent watching two hours of ‘The Internship’ I really don’t think I’ll ever search the internet via Google again.

The film is about Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson – a pair of salesmen who lose their jobs – and their attempts to get an internship at possibly the most famous web-based company to date, Google.  So begins their ‘hilarious’ shenanigans at Google’s headquarters.  I put ‘hilarious’ in quote marks because the film is two hours.  Two hours.  To make anything ‘hilarious’ for two hours is a job harder than building up the world’s most recognisable web search engine.  And, sadly. The Internship doesn’t really pull it off.

It starts out with some promise, i.e. it’s actually funny.  However, as the two hours go by, the jokes get fewer and fewer and more time elapses when you get this real feeling of de ja vu.  I can’t put my finger on it, but the whole premise seems to have been done before.  I don’t know if the genre of film has an actual name, but it’s basically one of those films where the team of misfit losers ends up learning to work together and beat every other team who are blatantly better and more organised than them – off the top of my head two types I can think of is ‘Monsters: University’ and ‘The House Bunny.’

Naturally, you have the ‘bad’ team of rival interns who, despite being the best, are also completely objectionable and full of themselves.  Guess what... I wonder if they’ll get what’s coming to their smug faces throughout the story?

Then you have the ‘love interest’ for Owen Wilson, who he ‘romances’ by basically stalking and annoying her until she falls madly in love with him.

Ultimately, I saw The Internship like Google’s ‘anti-recruitment’ video.  Being as big as they are, they must get more than their fair share of job applicants, begging to work for them.  Having watched the film, I think it could be the last place I’d ever want to work.  Their ‘recruitment process’ involves all of the worst things you’ve ever been forced to do in the name of ‘team bonding’ on works outings, mixed with all those pointless and embarrassing activities you were made to do when you went to a job interview for a company who thought they were trendy.

Bottom line: there just aren’t enough laughs or originality to stretch this film out to two hours.  Cut half an hour out here and there and you might have had a much better and tighter film.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off you search for other people’s opinions on the film via AOL.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back