You should know what type of film this is by reading the title. Don’t take it seriously, because the filmmakers don’t. Adam Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone (a.k.a., The Lonely Island) have gone from “Jizz In My Pants” to Hot Rod, now to Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a great achievement in pop-culture satire. It’s got it everything from hashtags to TMZ; self-indulgent live performances to endless celebrity cameos. The strength of the film is its willingness to go all the way with its over-the-top concept, touching on many contemporary celebrity issues along the way.
It’s a mockumentary, similar to Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap. A film like this is important in our day and age. Without it, we’d probably take our celebrities and everything they do too seriously. Don’t think so? Okay, not everyone would, but the amount of Justin Bieber and Rihanna stories that stream yahoo, facebook, twitter and all the rest are pretty astounding for merely existing. Regardless of whether you read them or not, celebrities dominate our culture’s digital age. They’ve always dominated magazines, articles, and fashion. We just have smartphones and the internet to increase the obnoxiousness level.
With that being said, the story is a personal account of the protagonist, Conner Friel (Connor4Real), preparing for the release of his second album, ConnQuest. Conner is like most modern celebrities; pretentious, narcissistic, arrogant and completely full of shit. Samberg parodies the looks, attitude and words of most stars that permeate our culture. I swear, he has a different style of clothing in almost every scene he’s in. When he’s onstage he sells it, playing for the crowd and living it up. Some of the scenes that are created are actually pretty impressive. The film’s opening number, “I’m so humble,” boasts some impressive holograms of Adam Levine and other special effects. Even if it is a parody, The Lonely Island create music that’s fun to listen to. Another favorite of mine was “Equal Rights,” a rap song spoofing Mackemore’s “Same Love.”
But not just the parodies are clever. The characters are well developed and entertaining. They’re like SNL characters that escaped their sketch and made a movie, sort of like The Blues Brothers. Akiva Schaffer is hilarious as the has-been writer who gets exiled from stardom after Connor declares himself a solo artist (originally belonging to a trio known as The Style Boyz). Schaffer’s got some of the best scenes, sporting a hillbilly beard and carving wood art as an inept farmer. Chris Redd lights up the stage with an over-the-top rapper known as Hunter the Hungry. Schaffer, Samberg and Taccone also develop a tight bond that preaches the importance of friendship over ambition. It’s a sappy theme, but in a film all about the danger of success and confused stardom, reads fairly well.
Besides their numerous internet videos, this is the first I’ve seen of the great trio. I haven’t even seen Hot Rod. Their absurdest comedy routine has streamed pop-culture for the last decade, and surely contains plenty of merit that could be easily missed. If you’re tired of trudging through celebrity sites on your smartphone or skipping reality TV shows, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is worth the watch. Sometimes it’s okay to sit back and see what a silly culture we are.