Cert 12A
119 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate sex references and one use of strong language
This homage to one of the world's biggest companies amounts to one of the strangest premises for a Hollywood film I have ever seen.
The Internship is akin to a very well-made and rather funny corporate video.
So much so that I looked around as I was leaving Nottingham Cineworld to see if anyone was going to test me on what I had learned about Google in the previous two hours.
The answers would have surrounded its innovations, diversity, care for its employees and its cut-throat internship programme.
Yes, Shawn Levy's film really does lay it on that thick.
It led me to wonder how much Google paid The Internship's makers (much of the filming is done at its headquaters and its staff are roped in as extras).
Nothing, according to reports that I have read.
In which case, I am utterly bamboozled why movie-makers would go to such lengths to bow down to a commercial company.
It was Vince Vaughn who first came up with the story of The Internship and he also produces and stars in it.
He and his Wedding Crashers co-star Owen Wilson play salesman who, having been made redundant, decide to apply for an internship at Google.
To qualify they have to spend the summer up against hard-driven nerds who are half their ages.
Thus, there is an avalanche of fish-out-of-water jokes which highlight the yawning age gap (as if it needed highlighting).
And yet, with all of this mind, dare I admit that I laughed out loud five times?
Usually, I have as much disdain for Vaughn as I do for Seth Rogen but here I couldn't help falling for his heartfelt optimism.
He and Wilson make a pretty good double act and are complemented by straight men Aasif Mandvi and Max Minghella.
The problem was that they couldn't distract enough from the avalanche of Googlisms (we even get to see its prototype driver-less car).
Laughs: Five out loud plus plenty of chuckles.
Jumps: none
Vomit: off screen retching
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 6.5/10