Proof that with The Lonely Island everything is awesome.
In order for a mockumentary to be great, there is a fine line it needs to walk – it has to be both believable and utterly outrageous. Lean too far towards one side or the other and the entire thing comes crashing down. The Lonely Island's big screen music mockumentary effort, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, straddles that line perfectly. Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer have constructed an utterly hysterical and relatively believable movie. Kudos must go to all three with the trio having written the movie together, Samberg playing the lead, and Taccone and Schaffer co-directing.
Popstar is the story of singer Conner4Real (Samberg), and it unfolds as Conner is launching his second solo effort, Connquest. At one point, Conner was a member of a trio, the Style Boyz, which, kind of like the Lonely Island, featured three friends who grew up together. Beyond Conner, the Boyz included Owen (Taccone) and Lawrence (Schaffer), but as Conner's star rose the band broke up. When the movie opens, Owen is Conner's DJ (but only gets to press play on an iPod) while Lawrence is off farming in Colorado. For his part, Owen would love to see the Boyz reform while Lawrence is angry at Conner for reasons that become clear later in the film.
The genius of Popstar lies not within the broader story as, let's face it, the tale of a band breaking up and the artists pursuing other efforts isn't terribly novel, but rather in the specifics. Conner has become an incredibly insulated celebrity, surrounded by yes men and completely unaware of how ridiculous he sounds singing a song about how he's a massive star, great at everything, a generally fantastic guy, and yet "so humble."
Then there is the supporting cast which is a combination of celebrities like Mariah Carey, Jimmy Fallon, Pink, and Adam Levine playing themselves alongside Maya Rudolph, Sarah Silverman, Will Arnett, Chris Redd, Imogen Poots, Tim Meadows, and more as various individuals who weave in and out of Conner's life. Whether they are talking to the camera offering one-on-one insight about Conner or part of a scene in his life, everyone seems to hit every moment with perfection.
This may be the case because Popstar doesn't hang around any one moment too long. Instead, it regularly pushes forward from one thing to the next, taking a minute to skewer TMZ's constant, invasive celebrity coverage but also being sure to poke fun at the ridiculous celebrity antics that cause the coverage in the first place.
One of the most impressive things about Popstar is its juggling of various types of footage. One-on-one interviews with the camera offer one feel, while the "archival" footage has another, TV footage a third, and on and on. Each of these elements feel true to themselves and are assembled in such a way that they work perfectly, creating a single, cohesive whole.
The movie also earns kudos for the songs The Lonely Island have written and recorded for it. It is a fantastic and fantastically funny soundtrack with songs covering various styles and topics but each and every one, even the "bad" ones, are incredibly catchy. This can actually be vaguely problematic as no one should ever go down the street singing Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song), a song which details Conner meeting a woman with a quite specific sexual fantasy.
In fact, the biggest disappointment in the film is that overarching story of Conner having to come to grips with his Style Boyz past and where he is now. In a movie so full of hysterical and surprising moments, for that larger story to be so very clichéd and obvious is a small let down. Popstar is able to do great things within the confines of that tale, and those things do make it a fantastically enjoyable movie, but they don't make the tale any better.
The Verdict
For all its brilliance, one can't help walking out of Popstar feeling just a little sad. This less because the basic outline is exactly what one might expect from a behind-the-scenes documentary about a band and more due to the fact that the movie ends at all. We are all now in the terrible position of having to wait to see what Samberg, Taccone, and Schaffer come up with next. There is an energy and enthusiasm which the three impart to every single aspect of this film, and that enthusiasm radiates out to the entirety of the cast. Scene after scene in Popstar is wonderfully conceived and executed and it makes for a great time at the movies.
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