Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, from The Lonely Island, has its moments, but its weighed down by too many factors to become a classic comedy.
Expectations are a funny thing. I walked into The Nice Guys expecting a great movie and got it. I walked into Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising expecting crap and got a funny movie with surprising depth. I walked into Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping expecting an exceedingly funny movie and got…well, I’m not sure what I got.
The Lonely Island, comprised of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer, have carved out a significant comedy pedigree for themselves over the past decade. They found success on SNL, primarily with Samberg in front of the camera while Taccone and Schaffer were behind it. They have released a series of successful digital shorts and videos as well as comedy albums. While they have been involved in other film projects, not to mention Samberg’s starring role in the epically funny TV series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, they also created the cult classic film Hot Rod that achieved new levels of ridiculousness. It is incredibly funny and highly underrated.
Popstar represents the biggest film project under the banner of The Lonely Island; it is a relatively big budget Hollywood film released during the summer blockbuster season.
And it is not their best work.
Popstar is a mockumentary following Conner4Real, a fictional rapper turned popstar, as he is releasing his second solo album and preparing to go on tour. Due to his own hubris, the whole thing falls apart and he must find redemption to repair his career, relationships, and damaged ego. It’s quite blatantly mocking the genre of popstar documentaries, popumentaries, like Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.
Mockumentaries about music are a hard nut to crack. This is Spinal Tap nailed it so well that trying to go back to that well inevitably draws comparisons. And virtually any movie will come up short in that contest, including Popstar.
The problem with this mock popumentary is that it is specifically going after Bieber’s. It’s not that the genre as whole, or Bieber specifically, doesn’t deserve to be made fun of; the problem is that it’s not a universal touchstone. The bulk of the audience interested in going to Popstar probably has never sat through a popumentary focused on stars like Justin Bieber or Katy Perry. The mockumentary part is easy to connect with but the specifics are lacking to a large percentage of the audience.
The same issue pops up on a smaller scale with the scenes mocking TMZ. The person I went to Popstar with was aware of TMZ but has never seen the TV show. As such, those scenes were completely lost on her, which is too bad since they featured Will Arnett and Chelsea Peretti. These scenes are a prime example of how Popstar gets too bogged down in a never-ending stream of cameos that don’t really go anywhere.
This movie is kind of an embarrassment of riches in the cameo department. Bill Hader. Maya Rudolph. Joan Cusack. Martin Sheen. A string of musicians, including Usher, Adam Levine, Seal, Carrie Underwood, and Nas. But many of these cameos were in the trailers and what you see is what you get. Bill Hader appears for the exact jokes that are in the trailers and that’s it. Same for Joan Cusack. Same for Martin Sheen. Tim Meadows and Sarah Silverman play larger roles, and they’re both great. Others don’t. Joan Cusack in particular is a shame as the movie plays the ‘mother wanted to be famous and is doing by proxy through her son’ card briefly but never really digs into it. And underutilizing Joan Cusack is always a waste of talent.
The core problem is the structure of the story. The overwhelming majority of the plot is the build up to the inevitable fall that is telegraphed from moment one. The path to redemption makes up the last 10% of the movie. This structure just doesn’t work.
Consider Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, one of the funniest movies of the last 20 years. While they have extremely different subjects and narrative styles, these two movies are quite similar at their cores; successful protagonists who lose everything due to their own arrogance and must learn humility to rebuild their lives. In Talledega Nights, Ricky Bobby’s fall from grace due to his own hubris comes early in the film. The bulk of the movie is about finding redemption, with the comedy growing from the ludicrousness of that path. The fall comes far too late in Popstar. The buildup drags on while the path to redemption is too quick, which is unfortunate as that’s where the comedy in a story like this lives.
In the end, none of that is the point of Popstar. It is in reality a series of funny sketches and songs loosely strung together on a paper-thin plot. And it that regard, it work. There are some outrageously funny scenes, moments, and characters, enough so that it makes watching the film fun. But it lacks the brilliance of This is Spinal Tap, the comedic arc of Talledega Nights, and the heart of Hot Rod. It’s fun for a quick watch on a Saturday night but it’s also not something you’re going to keep coming back to like any of those three movies.
The Lonely Island is a great comedy team who has a lot more funny movies, videos, songs, and more to give us. That’s a guarantee. Popstar is another step on that path.