'The Internship' is affable but outdated, critics say

‘The Internship’ is affable but outdated, critics say

By Oliver Gettell

June 6, 2013 12 AM PT

What would happen if the two dudes from “Wedding Crashers” were eight years older, got fired and hatched the harebrained idea to intern at Google in hopes of landing lucrative jobs in the tech sector? Whether or not anyone was actually wondering, that’s more or less the question answered by the new Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson comedy “The Internship.”

According to movie critics, “The Internship” takes after its leads, being affable (and with a PG-13 rating, less ribald than the R-rated “Crashers”) but also a bit out of touch with the times.

The Times’ own Betsy Sharkey compares the film to “a one-liner forged into a two-hour joke.” The plot, she adds, “follows a familiar path,” and “the movie is not exactly a laugh riot.” One joke in particular “will make anyone under 100 groan.”

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But the comedy “is amiable enough -- and surprisingly clean.” As for Vaughn and Wilson, “if you liked the relationship and the repartee they had going in ‘Wedding Crashers,’ that chemistry is very much there defining and driving ‘The Internship,’ just dialed down a few notches.”

USA Today’s Claudia Puig, however, says the two are “clueless, and not particularly funny” this time around. “While Vaughn and Wilson were hilarious in 2005’s ‘Wedding Crashers,’ those expecting this to be ‘Google Crashers’ are in for a rude awakening. ‘The Internship’ is closer to ‘Dude, Where’s My Job?’ ” Puig adds that “Vaughn’s charm serves him sporadically (he also co-wrote the script) and Wilson is blandly affable. But sometimes their garrulous riffing is just plain annoying.”

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune says that “The Internship” is “occasionally funny” and that “the casting helps,” but the whole thing seems like an extended commercial for Google. “This isn’t product placement; it’s product brain imprint.”

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It’s also too long, Phillips says: “Director Shawn Levy surely knew that the script at hand didn’t warrant a full two-hour running time; even if you enjoy ‘The Internship,’ as my son did, it feels 20 minutes over-full at least.”

Stephen Farber of the Hollywood Reporter writes, “There are a lot of good comic possibilities lurking in Shawn Levy’s new movie, ‘The Internship,’ but most of them never quite break the surface of this mild, occasionally likable romp that plays more like a love letter to Google.”

The plot is predictable -- “it isn’t hard to guess the outcome” -- and Vaughn’s and Wilson’s characters “aren’t very sharply differentiated. Both of them are fast-talking, confident hustlers. It would have been more satisfying if they had more distinctive personalities.” On the plus side, “Vaughn and Wilson riff together with pleasing professionalism,” and “a number of talented newcomers” round out the cast.

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Variety’s Scott Foundas offers one of the more positive reviews, writing, “ ‘The Internship’ gets surprising mileage out of [its] premise, thanks to the infectious chemistry of Wilson and Vaughn and the gallery of equally fine comic performers who back them up, including a scene-stealing Aasif Mandvi, … the lovely Rose Byrne … and newcomer Josh Brener.”

Although the film is “undeniably long in the tooth” and occasionally “sells itself short with dumb, unconvincing gags,” Foundas says, “the pic’s unwavering charm keeps it afloat.”

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