Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I like some silly stuff. You need to know that up front. That's the reason I've been Team Lonely Island since the early days with Hot Rod. It's also the reason I have a soft spot for Freddy Got Fingered. It's not always a blessing, folks.
So, when I say Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is silly as shit you know that's a glowing review from me.
Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone have made greatness apart from each other (MacGruber!!!), but when they're together something just gels. It's like when Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost work together. That particular mixture of personalities always gives me something I want to watch or listen to.
Popstar's a perfect collaboration for these guys since it really allows them to merge their regular comedic timing and their flair for writing silly, but insanely catchy, music. Done in faux documentary style, Popstar follows the loveably delusional Conner, a former boy band singer who found success striking out on his own. The world's his oyster. He's got all the money, all the fame, all the celebrity friends... so who needs real friends that might actually deflate his ego from time to time? It's an archetype as old as the concept of fame, but Samberg smartly makes Conner a likeable dolt. He's not really smart enough to realize how much of a dick he's being, so you don't hold it against him while watching.
You can't make a goofy fake documentary about clueless musicians without owing a debt to This Is Spinal Tap and you can definitely feel its influence on this film. If I were a betting man, I'd wager that the number one lesson Team Lonely Island took away from Rob Reiner's classic comedy was to make sure you loved every member of the band. You gotta have that heart or you're just watching privileged people being shitty to everybody.
The team dynamic at play really makes this film work. Andy is pretty much a likeable Justin Bieber, Akiva is the friend who refuses to be taken advantage of and splits away and Jorma is loyal puppy dog friend who isn't quite a yes man, but just can't abandon his buddy.
Conner isn't aware that life is a series of highs and lows. He thinks it's always going to be as good as it is, so when failure hits he spirals wildly out of control. Desperation soon makes things worse as he leans on gimmicks when the songs aren't working.
The only problem I have with the movie is that all the songs from his new, failed, album are awesome. I mean, they're funny and not straight up pop, but so were the songs from The Style Boyz, the boy band that launched these characters into stardom. Mona Lisa (Is An Overrated Piece of Shit) is all-time stuff.
My initial instinct was to pick a single MVP of this movie and give Tim Meadows that award, but then I remembered Will Arnett's savage cameo as TMZ's Harvey Levin and I hesitated. Meadows still gets it because his character is a constant in the film (he plays Conner's manager) and, well, Tim Meadows is fucking awesome, but Arnett came damn close to stealing the MVP title. The whole group imitating the TMZ bullpen is such sharp fuck you satire to that organization that each cutaway to them makes me fall deeper in love with this movie.
As you'd expect there's dozens of cameos in the film. They come so fast and furious that you barely have time to register them before they're on to the next funny bit. That's called good pacing, folks.
All in all, this is a damn funny flick that I will absolutely be revisiting multiple times. I recommend it to anybody that likes juvenile humor as much as I do.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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