Eric here, with a quick review of the new movie from The Lonely Island comedy trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping.
Pop Star is one of those films, like Anchorman or Zoolander, that gives you two choices: surrender or resist. You can either dive headfirst into this mockumentary of pop music sensation Conner4Real, and enjoy a hodgepodge of hit-or-miss jokes…or you can yawn at the filmmakers calling in a favor to every famous person they know (Carrie Underwood, Adam Levine, Usher, etc.) to lend some authenticity to the piece.
If you resist, Pop Star is probably a pretty unbearable sit, because it’s another movie from producer Judd Apatow that features a bunch of male comedy guys conning a studio out of about $30 million just so they can show the world (and themselves) how adorably imbecilic but ultimately likable they are. While the film itself is about an egomaniac, there’s a lingering ickiness about the ego behind and in front of the camera too. The film purports to skewer rap star narcissism, but the behavior is celebrated as often as it’s parodied.
But if you surrender, the laughs deliver...
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