Review of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) by Kaptenvideo — 09 Dec 2016

Considering how much I like the comedian Andy Samberg, it's kind of surprising that I've mostly seen him in smaller trivial movie roles and "Brooklyn Nine-Nine", but not "SNL" which is his main body of work on screen.

So the catching up may begin with "Popstar" which gives him a big movie role. In a rather little known and commercially flopped movie but still! Co-written with "SNL" buddies Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Tacco, all three forming a rapping boy band. The most successful one goes solo later and this is mostly his story about going places, then falling down and rediscovering the charms of having your true buddies with you, always. The result is mockumentary-style modern music business fable, hitting on all the main cliches and having a surprising amount of real life stars cameoing, mostly as themselves commenting on the main character's career. More on that later.

Like many projects by famous American screen comedians, "Popstar" has some good ideas and ambition but doesn't really reach out to any refreshing new ground, relying mostly on the charms of the cast and their ability to improvise. They try quite hard and steadily, to lampoon the American new pop music industry – where mediocrity rules and promotion is way more important than the product – but end up mostly imitating or rehashing the stuff they are supposed to laugh at. So if you like Samberg, you will be at least somewhat amused by the result; if you don't know or care about him you can quite safely miss this movie.

Judd Apatow is credited as one of the producers. His "extended family" has actually produced similar lampooning comedies in the first half of 2000's. Some of them are actually good and still watch-worthy: "Anchorman" (about 1970's TV news business) "Walk Hard" (about music business) and "Talladega Nights" (about NASCAR racing). So if you don't dislike Will Ferrell or John C. Reilly or Apatow school of modern rude but sweet comedy, you should check them out. Just to let you know: "Popstar" really has amazing amout of real life stars in small roles, playing themselves mostly. Including Questlove, Carrie Underwood, NAS, Usher, 50 Cent, Ringo Starr of The Beatles, Simon Cowell, Adam Levine (Maroon 5), Akon, Mariah Carey (insisting she's the most humble person she knows), Pink, radio host Big Boy, DJ Khaled, A$AP Rocky, RZA, T.I., Pharell Williams, Seal, Snoop Dogg, Weird Al Yankovic, Michael Bolton, The Roots, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Danger Mouse, Jimmy Fallon, Arcade Fire. Also popping in are some cool comedy people like Sarah Silverman, Will Arnett, and Bill Hader.

Yes, it's a good 10-minute sketch stretched to over 80 minutes... but I still quite enjoyed it.