Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Jorma Taccone & Akiva Schaffer, 2016)

6/10
Even if we all know that's Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island guys pretending to be pop stars and making a fake documentary, what's the point in presenting yourself as a documentary when you just cast big stars in other roles? Tim Meadows is the manager, Sarah Silverman is the publicist, Maya Rudolph is an appliance salesperson. If the movie isn't willing to make any effort to sell itself as a documentary, even if it's a comedy, why should I care? The movie doesn't stop there but even stoops to lame meta-jokes: Justin Timberlake plays the group's chef, and in one scene he's singing to himself, and the guys tell him to shut up and leave the singing to the pros! Get it? Because, in real life, in fact, Justin Timberlake is the pro!!! It's like casting Tony Iommi or Joe Perry as a guitar tech for the Spinal Tap guys and winking at the camera the entire time. Surely this is close to if not the lowest form of comedy?
As if that isn't enough, Popstar is jam-packed with more celebrities, playing themselves, giving on-camera testimonials to the group's greatness - Carrie Underwood, Nas, A$AP Rocky and Ringo Starr to name just a few of the many. In literally every scene there's a new celeb cameo designed to elicit a titter of recognition from the crowd, which smacks of laziness to me.
But that's, overall, my problem (ideologically) with this movie. Everybody is so clearly in on the joke, so obviously having fun with the notions of what it means to be a pop star in 2016, that how could the satire not be completely toothless? How can you offend anyone if you're trying so hard to include everyone?
All of that may maybe be enough to sink the movie on its own merits...but it's actually a pretty funny movie. Notwithstanding my examples above (or once you get past them). Undoubtedly, the Lonely Island guys know comedy pretty well. There are a lot of jokes and lines that are quite funny, and even if they don't land, there's another joke coming up in three seconds that might be more to your taste. So, of course, it's the old dilemma of picking the movie apart versus shutting up and just laughing along. It's easier to say Popstar works on some levels and not on others. If you give up your hopes of Popstar being a biting satire and instead just enjoy it for what it is, you may find yourself laughing more than you expected. At least I did. I'm not in a hurry to watch it again but if I turned on the TV and it was playing, I'd probably stick around till the end. For whatever that's worth.