“Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” is shot as a documentary. The story follows the rise of the world’s most famous popstar, Conner4Real (Samberg). The “documentary” follows Conner as his second solo album is about to drop. He was once part of a famous boy band before embarking on a solo career. However, Conner is about to learn the harshest lesson in showbiz, what goes up, must come down.
If you’ve seen any of the advertisements for “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” you probably know what it’s biggest problem is, it’s stupid! The fact that you can tell that from the commercials is probably also why it made such little money this weekend and debut at #8. The movie was stupid, Samberg’s character is literally stupid as is most of the humor in the movie too. The movie does have some good laughs here and there, but they’re rare. You’d have to made of stone to never laugh at all during this hour-and-a-half affair (one positive is that the movie is not too long).
The movie is a product of the comedy trio The Lonely Island. You know them best for the SNL Digital Shorts they used to do, but they also did the “Hot Rod” movie too. Again, these guys need to stick to TV or making funny shorts. Another problem with “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” is they created a character who you are not rooting for, you actually want Conner to fail. Andy Samberg appears to want to be the next Adam Sandler. He may take comfort in that many of Sandler’s early films were not well reviewed either. However, many of those movies were pretty good and Sandler played characters audiences really liked. An example would be “The Waterboy.” Critics panned it, but the movie was a huge hit, grossing over $150 million. If audiences were not cheering on Sandler’s character, do you think it would have made that much money? That’s what Samberg and his friends have yet to understand.
There are plenty of cameo appearances in “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.” Carrie Underwood, Usher, 50 Cent, even Simon Cowell comes along to claim how “Collin4Real is actually saving the music industry.” That’s when you really have to suspend your disbelief, because you see his past “hits” and wonder how this guy made it at all. Eventually you realize this whole movie is a long parody of the music industry. The filmmakers KNOW it’s stupid. This is not news to them. There will be no “For your consideration…” ads in the trade magazine for this movie in the trades at the end of the year. However, what the filmmakers failed to realize is that many people will not “get” this joke.
A final problem is that this is a movie with no audience. The humor of it is directed at young teenaged boys, but it is a hard rated R film for some graphic nudity, language throughout, sexual content and drug use. Parents who take their kids to see this movie can be labeled as bad parents. So if the target audience for this movie can’t see it, who will? Someone should have thought of that while the movie was being made because now they have a money loser on their hands.
It’s doubtful Andy Samberg or anyone in The Lonely Island will read this review or if they did, care what it has to say. Who knows though. Maybe they will read how Samberg should stick to television and they’ll use that as motivation to make a good movie. One can only hope that they will.
