Billy and Nick (Vaughn and Wilson) are salesmen who lose their jobs when their company closes. For no real reason, they apply for a summer internship at Google and inexplicably get places alongside a gang of teenagers. Their ethnically balanced team in a series of tasks includes brainiacs Stuart, Neha and Yo-Yo (O'Brien, Sircar and Raphael) plus 23-year-old leader Lyle (Brener). Meanwhile, Nick starts comically courting Google exec Dana (Byrne). But another intern (Minghella) is determined to sabotage them, and the head of the programme (Mandvi) is losing patience with their lack of discipline.

There is virtually nothing to the plot, which feels pieced together from a random sequence of scenes and side-stories that never come together into a coherent whole. There isn't even a whiff of bromance between Billy and Nick, who are ludicrously computer and culturally illiterate and yet manage to be geniuses when required. The other characters merely swirl around them predictably, learning Important Life Lessons from their moronic behaviour.

After a series of lazy film roles, Vaughn and Wilson are back on form, delivering energetic performances that bristle with perfectly timed punchlines. Their corny antics are never amusing, but Billy and Nick are so ridiculous that we can't help but like them. And the dialog is indeed hilarious, packed with witty lines that keep us laughing. If a script is going to leave the characters as shallow as this, at least pack in the jokes.

Much of this film's comedy has a riotously surreal touch, which means we rarely see the gags coming ("Did you get beat up a lot in home school?"). On the other hand, Google is portrayed as a job-seeker's paradise, albeit one that's virtually impossible to get into (the intern competition is a "mental Hunger Games" during which they actually play a Quiddich match). So the film may be good fun, but it's also predictable and pointless. Unless you own stock in Google.

themes, language, innuendo

20.Jun.13