Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

The Lonely Island presents their first movie with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Structured as a behind the scenes documentary of a Bieber-alike Conner4Real (Andy Samberg) and his former band The Style Boyz, Popstar has endless cameos from the hip hop and rap community talking about the impact The Style Boyz has had on pop culture. A glossy take on modern pop music and the inherent ridiculousness of massive egos and enormous money, Popstar skewers the modern industry delightfully, but relies heavily on the audience’s knowledge of the battles behind the scenes. 

Out of context vignettes parodying TMZ are dropped into the film and as a non-American who has never seen TMZ, left me cold. The film is earnest in its attempt to create empathetic characters within the madness on Conner4Real on tour but is light on laugh out loud moments, save for a wedding proposal gone wrong and a groupie scene flipped on its head. Those standout moments and the expertly crafted pop parody “Fuck Bin Laden” are the highlights of an ambitious but mediocre film.