Tern back time

I've been doing my best to catch up on my movie reviews and now it turns out I can actually do one BEFORE a movie is widely released in theaters. Earlier this week I caught a sneak preview of The Internship, the first re-teaming of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson since 2005's Wedding Crashers. It's pretty remarkable to think that it's taken this long to get these two back on screen together considering how successful that film was and the struggles both men have had at recapturing that greatness alone since then.

In this new outing, they play a couple of struggling watch salesmen who find themselves being squeezed out of their own industry. In the sales world, the human being is going the way of the dinosaur it seems. Desperate to stay relevant, Vaughn's Billy comes up with the idea of having him and Wilson's Nick apply for an internship at Google. Despite not being in the typical demographic of who gets selected, these two guys manage to earn a chance of vying for the position. Once on Google's campus, they compete with a group of young, tech-savvy nerds in a series of "mental Hunger Games" for one of the internship slots.

A lot has been and will continue to be made about the proliferation of Google in this movie. Some critics have gone so far as to say the movie is nothing more than a 2 hour commercial for the search engine. I, however, did not take much issue with this. Yes, they likely could have told the same story using a completely fake tech company, but I never felt as if I was constantly being persuaded to use their services. The inclusion of Google seems organic to the story and creates a unique atmosphere that feels different than if this were set on an average college campus or corporate office. In fact, I probably had a tougher time with the Miller Lite product placement, than I did with Google. That seemed way more forced than their use of Google.

What didn't feel forced was the performances and friendship of Vaughn and Wilson. They pick right up where they left off with the fast-talking, laid-back fun they so easily conveyed in Crashers. What's more, there seems to be an energy to their performances that hasn't been seen from either of them in a long time as well. Vaughn, especially has seemed like he's phoned it in on a lot of his recent comedies, so it was nice to see him get excited with a role once again (this may partially have to do with the fact that Vaughn also co-wrote the script). No doubt if you were a fan of their previous work together, you'll be happy to see them back together here.

Though not nearly as wild or raunchy as their previous effort (this film is rated PG-13), this film works because it delivers laughs consistently. There are 2 or 3 big scenes that not only offers an overall humorous presence, but contain several good jokes within the scenes. Without spoiling it, there's a really great scene involving the characters competing in an "athletic competition" that had me rolling with laughter. The film also doesn't rely solely on Vaughn and Wilson to provide all the humor. Supporting actors like Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show) and Josh Gad (The Book of Mormon) steal their scenes. You also have some cameos appearances from some well known people. They pop-in, generate a few laughs, and quickly leave so as not to bog down the story.

Some will argue that a film like this doesn't need its 2 hour runtime, but in this particular case I think it worked. For one, I never felt like the movie dragged. And perhaps more importantly, with the extra time I felt like director Shawn Levy (Real Steel) was able to let the story breathe a little bit more. The group of younger students that Vaughn and Wilson team up with are each given some character development that enables us to have a rooting interest in their success just as much as we want to see Vaughn and Wilson triumph. With that said, the inclusion of a love story between Wilson and a Google employee played by Rose Byrne probably didn't need to be included, even if there's nothing wrong with their scenes.

Nothing about the story in The Internship is particularly new. It takes elements of the fish-out-of-water story, along with college campus hijinx to give us another tale of the underdog's unlikely ability to win. Any feeling of cynicism toward that lack of originality is eliminated because of the lack of cynicism seen in the film. Despite being beaten down by the world at every turn, these two characters remain enthusiastic about life and infuse that into everyone they meet. And unlike a movie like Larry Crowne where the positivity was seen as naiveté toward current real life economic hardships, the optimism here is infectious and makes you believe that the American Dream is still possible for each and every one of us.

The Internship does not have the same sharpness as some of the best comedies of the past decade, but I would have to call this a pleasant surprise. The film's trailer does not properly convey how much fun this film is. Even if you know where the story is heading, the jokes aren't telegraphed and that is what's most important about a movie like this. If you're looking to laugh, I recommend you use Google to search for when The Internship is showing in your city (oh no, maybe the film got to me after all!!). Grade: B

Ship ahoy

I'm happy to see Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson together again in a comedy - I just wish that the trailer for their latest film, The Internship didn't feel like a 2 minute commercial for Google.

RBR: The Big Year

If you heard there was a movie coming out about bird watching, you'd probably think "boring". But if I told you that same movie featured Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, you may begin to change your tune. I know I sure did. Which is why I decided to check out The Big Year It turns out though that even with those three tremendously talented, funny people this movie still turned out to be a bore. I was astounded that a film that featured not only those three stars, but a whole host of other funny people including Kevin Pollack, Rashida Jones, Joel McHale, Jim Parsons, Angelica Huston, Steven Weber, Dianne Wiest, Rosamund Pike, Brian Dennehy, Anthony Anderson, and John Cleese failed to yield even a chuckle out of me. The movie plays the subject matter straight and practically holds the 'sport' in reverence. I've got no problem with that in theory, but if that's the plan, there's no sense in having this cast do that kind of movie. As we watch the three leads cavort around the U.S. in an attempt to spot as many bird species as possible, we're suppose to see them make personal growth. Personally, I did not find any of their story arcs all that compelling and I felt using the birdwatching as some sort of metaphor for what they were going through at home to be strained. However, since the film feels so compelled to use it as an analogy for the characters' troubles, let me also use it to sum up my feelings for this dull movie - watching The Big Year is like spending all day looking in the sky for a rare falcon and all you ever spot is pigeons. Rating: ** 1/2

RBR: Cars 2

The general consensus is that Cars 2 gave Pixar its first clunker. For many that came as a surprise, but I frankly saw this coming a mile away. The first Cars film was my least favorite in the Pixar catalog. I found that one to be slow and uninteresting. I certainly would not use those words to describe this second entry however. Tonally, this film is the complete opposite. There's plenty of loud action and even more noise coming from Larry the Cable Guy's Mater, who takes center stage in this film. Why Pixar chose to center the film around him is baffling. What's even more disturbing is their attempt to make us feel sympathetic towards this uneducated, obnoxious character. Mater's storyline is an unnecessarily complicated spy plot that finds him accidentally getting involved with other spies who are investigated a plot against alternative fuel. Meanwhile Lightning McQueen is involved in a World Grand Prix, but the outcome of that race is completely inconsequential. While the people at Pixar are usually so good at crafting engaging stories, this one feels very repetitive. It's just an endless sequence of unfunny Mater humor, chase scene, race scene, repeat. Watching this I almost felt like this was intended to be a script for a sequel to The Incredibles and then at the last minute they decided that Cars was a more profitable franchise, so they shoehorned this story onto their world. And yet, for all of the film's problems, I still can't ignore that the film looks absolutely gorgeous. The backgrounds of several different European cities and the animation in each of the driving sequences looks great. It's just a shame that the story couldn't match the visuals this time around. While this is not a great Pixar film, it's still better than most of the animated films offered by any of the other studios. Still it's disheartening to see that Pixar isn't perfect and that they are capable of making a bad film every once in a while. It's ironic that a film about metal and machines is the one that showed us that Pixar is human. Rating: ***

Bird-brained

There's no denying the comedic talent of Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, but watching this trailer for The Big Year, I was a bit disappointed that the focus of the film seems to be more on their characters personal crises rather than on the birdwatching expedition, which seemed to be rife for comedy of the mundane. Take a look and see if you agree.