Jack Goes Confidential: ‘The Internship’—Dinosaurs versus Geeks

I SO very much wanted to like this movie…

And I sorta did, but I sure didn’t love it. Maybe my expectations were just too high.

THE INTERNSHIP – which reteams Vince Vaughn with Owen Wilson – just doesn’t measure up to THE WEDDING CRASHERS which had ’em rolling in the aisles back in 2005.

For both laughs and raunch.

WEDDING CRASHERS was a solid R while INTERNSHIP uses a softer PG-13 approach.

THE INTERNSHIP starts out promising enough.

Vaughn and Wilson as a couple of high end watch salesmen peddling their wares to jewelry stores—only to find out from a store owner during their last pitch session that their company was shutting down.

As the pair’s former boss John Goodman puts it, the watch business is dead. Everyone is using their cell phones to check the time these days.

Now what?

Time—no pun intended—has passed them by. Their skill levels are almost nil. So here they are now searching the internet for possible job leads under the heading: “Sales jobs for people with few skills.”

Owen Wilson finally caves in taking a position as a mattress salesman with neck tattooed mattress discount store weasel Will Ferrell—probably the funniest bit in the entire movie.

Ahhh, but then Vaughn stumbles across a chance at an internship with tech giant GOOGLE and convinces Wilson to join him.

It COULD lead to permanent positions……

But being thrown in with a bunch of 20-something, highly tech savvy interns puts our boys clearly out of their league. Trying to prove that they’re not obsolete while struggling in a world that’s almost passed them by now becomes the ongoing (and going, and going) joke.

Can and WILL they reinvent themselves and become true Googlites?

And why is it taking two hours to tell this story that could have easily been wrapped up in 95 minutes?

All in all the movie itself is likeable enough, has a decent premise and fair number of amusing moments. But is it edgy? No way. Especially when compared to the earlier WEDDING CRASHERS.

Hence THE INTERNSHIP raises 2-1/2 out of 5 predictable fingers.

(Reviewed at AMC Ward Parkway)

JACK GOES TO THE MOVIES Friday mornings at 6:40 a.m. and 8:40 a.m. on KMBZ Am & Fm / Also anytime on Time-Warner Cable’s K.C. ON DEMAND, Channel 411 / And throughout Nebraska on NEBRASKA ON DEMAND.