The comedic duo of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson team up once again, only this time they turn in their R-rated Wedding Crashers shenanigans for a little teen-friendly romp through the Google campus in The Internship, a thoroughly predictable summer comedy that brings product placement to a whole new level.

Vaughn and Wilson are Billy and Nick respectively, a couple of cracker-jack analog wristwatch salesmen who find themselves jobless when their company goes bust, a victim of today’s digital world. Hoping to disprove their obsolescence, the smooth-talkers finagle their way into a coveted internship at Google, along with dozens of smarter, better-educated kid geniuses who’ve grown up in the digital age.

Of course, gaining entrance to the internship is only half the battle. They find themselves up against those tech-savvy whiz-kids -- called nooglers -- in a series of team-building competitions that will determine which group gets hired as full-time Googlers -- that’s what full-time Google employees are called.

In very short order, Nick and Billy get teamed up with the other unpicked outcasts to form a group that’s both socially and technologically challenged but also just happens to be rainbow perfect and culturally correct. There’s Korean mama’s boy Yo-Yo (Tobit Raphael), Indian naughty girl Neha (Tiya Sircar), and cynical techie Stuart (Dylan O’Brien).

As you can see coming from a mile away, the main thrust of the story comes from the generational divide that separates Billy and Nick from their twenty-something counterparts. What their younger teammates lack in social skills and life experience, the old geezers more than make up for, pulling from years of sales and people knowledge to bond the team into a lean, mean Noogling machine.

Nothing goes against formula in The Internship as the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and Wilson’s Nick gets the girl in the form of a workaholic Googler named Dana (Rose Byrne). There’s even the requisite drunken visit to a strip club with the morning after’s ill effects to make everyone realize that sometimes winning is not about finishing first, and that it’s never too late to change. In other words, we must dare to keep searching for what’s right for us. Google/search, get it?

There’s actually a much-welcome bit of genuine heart and soul within the script Vaughn co-wrote with Jared Stern. That’s not to say it’s enough to overcome the film’s shocking lack of humor. The human moments are just too few and far between, and Wilson’s nuanced counter to Vaughn’s signature rat-a-tat, razor-sharp tongue are neutered by the film’s teen-friendly rating. These two clearly work better in an R-rated environment, so those expecting the second coming of the duo that rocked The Wedding Crashers will likely be disappointed. The Internship is simply not very funny.

Director Shawn Levy does succeed however in dropping us into the candy-colored, Wonka-like world of Google, which Fortune magazine declared this year’s best place to work. Lifting the curtain on Google’s wizardry -- the Georgia Tech campus meticulously standing in for Google’s Mountain View campus -- certainly provides viewers a rare glimpse into its dynamic trailblazing spirit. However, the nap pods, massage rooms, Dr. Seuss-ian bicycles, and Google’s full endorsement do nothing to erase the film’s overtly formulaic approach to filmmaking and its five-years-too-late relevance. There have already been worse comedies so far this year -- we’re looking at you Identity Thief -- but in the case of The Internship, that’s not a compliment.

(Released by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and rated “PG-13” for sexuality, some crude humor, partying and language.)

Review also posted at www.franksreelreviews.com.