The Internship Blu-ray Review

“Google needs us, and Google wants us”

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are a great comedy tag team.  I get excited when I hear they are going to be working together, so I have high hopes for their work.  This high expectation comes from the classic comedy Wedding Crashers.  Wedding Crashers is one of my favorite comedies ever.  Can the Internship live up to the expectations of the aforementioned film Vaughn and Wilson starred in? One thing going for The Internship is that Vaughn and Wilson have great onscreen chemistry.  The Internship flew under the radar in the box office.  This cloak keeping the film under the radar is represented by its ticket sales. It grossed $44,645,496 in the US while its budget was approximately $58,000,000, therefore, by definition it failed.  Part of the reason it struggled was due to the fact that it was eclipsed by other releases like Man of Steel (which was released a week after The Internship).  The question is, does The Internship deserve to be held highly in the annals of comedies like Wedding Crashers?

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Nick Campbell (Owen Wilson) and Billy McMahon (Vince Vaughn) are watch salesmen, who realize that their boss (John Goodman) sold the business.  Who is a watch salesman these days; but I digress.  With mortgages to pay and uncertain futures, they are left to wonder what their next steps will be.  Nick Campbell takes a job as a mattress salesman.  Will Ferrell makes a cameo appearance as Campbell’s manager.  He’s not as funny as he is in his cameo in Wedding Crashers, but I still love Will Ferrell.  Billy McMahon approaches Nick Campbell about an internship opportunity with Google, unpaid, but he sells it to him as the greatest place to work.  The way they work is reminiscent of their relationship in Wedding Crashers, where Vaughn is the ringleader.  Nick Campbell leaves his job as a mattress salesman and decides to interview with Billy McMahon for the Google Internship.  I could not help but think of their pitch to Senator Cleary in Wedding Crashers while they are being interviewed for the internship at Google.

Once they become interns (Googlers as they are called), they are mixed into a pool of candidates half their age with twice their educational acumen.  During training, they have their odds quickly stacked against them.  In between their attempts to become employees of Google, Nick Campbell starts to fall for a Google employee named Dana (played by Rose Byrne).  To me, this was reminiscent of Owen Wilson falling for Rachel McAdams in Wedding Crashers.  While they may not be able to compete with the younger interns, their experience in life helps give their peers a different kind of experience they were lacking.  There was some adversity, but the interns who Nick and Billy were teamed with stuck together and remained positive.

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The Internship uses a 1080p AVC MPEG 4 transfer, and is presented with a 2:35:1 aspect ratio.  The presentation here is excellent.  Anything from the color of flowers to the Google logo pops.  You can see the creases on Vince Vaughn’s face, and even the dust in between the keys on his keyboard.  Not everything is overly done either.  The musty shade of brown and green in John Goodman’s office looked like they came straight from the 70’s.

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The DTS HD-MA 5.1 score works well even though the Internship is not the type of film that drives all of your speakers like an action film.  Since this is a comedy, most of the time you are listening to Vaughn and Wilson speak.  It’s never a problem hearing them or the other cast of the film, so dialogue is clear and discernible even at lower levels.  When the soundtrack like Alanis Morissette and B.O.B. makes its presence, you get a better sense of the surround audio representation of The Internship.  Overall the audio works very well in the Internship.

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Theatrical Trailer

Sneak Peeks

Theatrical Audio Commentary With Shawn Levy

Deleted Scenes

  • Cosplay—They cut Will Ferrell out of a scene?  I enjoyed this scene.  Too bad it didn’t make the cut.
  • Foreclosure—Billy McMahon finds out his home is being foreclosed.
  • A Bad Day Gets Worse—Billy McMahon gets gorilla sprayed and hit by a car.
  • Talk Show Walk And Talk—Just Billy and Nick walking and talking, literally.
  • Tech Stop—Here we find out that the Compaq Presario Elite is the worst computer made ever.
  • Missy Franklin—Olympic gold medalist swimmer Missy Franklin makes an appearance.  This would have been a good scene to incorporate.
  • Billy and Nick On Catwalk—I can see why this scene was cut.
  • Nick Calls Stuart—One of the intern makes a call.  Another worthless scene.

Any Given Monday

  • A 17:53 documentary featuring the stars of the film and director, Shawn Levy, discussing the Internship Quidditch League.  This is hosted by IQL films, which is supposed to be a spoof of NFL films.  For those of you who do not know what Quidditch is, it is a competitive sport from the Harry Potter world.  An actual sport was developed from this fictional game called Muggle Quidditch.  Yes, they play a game of Muggle Quidditch in the movie.  Shawn Levy narrates the documentary.  The cast and crew go behind the scenes in the making of the Quidditch match of the film.  It’s pretty interesting but to spend almost 18 minutes of special feature time on a Quidditch game is kind of ridiculous.  I would rather hear Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, and Shawn Levy talk about the making of the movie, not the game.  Sadly, this is the beefiest portion of the bonuses on the disc.

 

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There are some light laughs here but I wasn’t laughing hysterically.  I could not help but think Wedding Crashers here (as mentioned several times in the review), even though the subject matter was completely different.  Two people, who once thought they knew who they were, completely surprised themselves and others as well.  With that said, I’m not sure if two individuals in the real world who have no educational or professional backgrounds in the related field could even have a shot working in computer programming.  Plus, they were double the age of the other college interns.  It almost seemed unlikely.  Suspending my disbelief though, I rooted for Wilson and Vaughn.  I enjoyed The Internship, but I found it to be much weaker than Wedding Crashers.  My goal is not to compare the two films though, but it’s hard not to do when the former was that good.  If you are a fan of Vaughn and Wilson, I think you will enjoy this film.  If you are looking for a laugh out loud comedy, something you would expect of from Vaughn and Wilson, you will not find it here.  Vaughn and Wilson’s chemistry is there, but it’s not enough to land the Internship the job of being a great film.  The Internship comes with two cuts, theatrical and unrated.  The unrated version tacks on an additional 5 minutes to the film, but if you ask me, the film is a little too long as it is.  The audio and video make this a good quality disc, but where the presentation shines, the extras included lack.  I would give this one a rent, but if you enjoy the Vaughn and Wilson combo, add it to your collection.

Purchase The Internship @ Amazon!