Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

I haven’t sat through anything as forgettable and inconsequential as Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping since my own high school graduation. And that was a long time ago with many blackout drunk nights, concussions and regrettable unrequited gestures of affection in between. I recall vague bits of that day long ago: a hot dry field full of buzzing gnats, everyone on folding chairs, me throwing up a lot because I was drunk but also because I had given myself food poisoning from eating raw meatballs during my home ec final (Panicked, I ran through the class reenacting the classic Lucille Ball candy factory scene with every student’s meatballs because I thought that would distract the teacher from noticing I still didn’t know how to use an oven). I recall being called to a stage last because of “extenuating circumstances,” and a fat guy in a black dress handing me a blank card in place of a diploma because I was short four credits in biology and math and had to retake them over summer before I “officially” graduated. 

While I can’t remember much about the ceremony, I remember graduation night: the huge all-night parties, the debauchery, the confessions of secret crushes, the tearful farewells among friends who were heading off in different directions to conquer the world.  Basically all the shit I didn’t get to see or do because nobody invited me. I spent the evening drinking box wine with my grandma, arguing about Mothra and Gamera, until we both passed out and urinated all over ourselves. Or, if you believe my sister’s version of events, pissed all over each other. Oh, Grandma.

Point is, the joke’s on the assholes, because I never went to summer school. I just tell everyone I graduated and they believe me. That day was forgettable but at least I got something out of it. I got neither jack nor jill shit out of Popstar.

This movie purports to be a satire, but I have no fucking idea what it thinks it’s satirizing. Sure, the grassfuckers, marketers and Adam Samberg sycophants can say it’s going after prefab pop stars, or the modern pop music machine. But satire has teeth and a target. This movie is too lazy to have either. It’s got the wit and charm of a fat guy in sweatpants eating Totino’s Pizza Rolls and yelling “You suck” at his TV.

Maybe one of the bros who made it thought they were being clever, but fucking idiots think they’re being clever every God damn day. That’s why emergency rooms are full of people with kitchen appliances and farm equipment shoved up their asses.

Popstar is a tedious drag of low-brow sight gags and non-sequitur jokes that have as much bite as that creepy old dude who hangs around with his finger in the butterscotch pudding in the Country Buffet. There was one funny joke, but I can’t remember what it was. All I remember was the onslaught of shitty-writers-cracking-each-other-up gags delivered with all the attention to detail of a gay wedding cake from Walmart.

Samberg plays Conner, a mega pop star who has abandoned the boy band he started with, even though his success is because of his old mates (Taccone and Schaffer).  This setup tells you all you need to know about how the movie ends: Conner is hoisted by his own petard, apologizes and the old band reunites. It’s just too fucking bad that the journey from premise to conclusion is littered with more duds than the ground of a Latvian fireworks factory.

Along the way, a few potentially rich comic premises are grazed and abandoned. One is that Conner is secretly gay. This is brought up and then never revisited, and I sat waiting for it to be funny. Commer’s former bandmates have hit harder times after he abandoned them, but the movie gives no context. Are they poor or rich? Are they bitter? Why are they so fucking passive? A funnier movie would be for these former bandmates to exact a revenge. 

There are also a fuckload of unfunny songs that maybe could have been if there was some context. For example, Conner sings a song about how the Mona Lisa is an overrated bitch. Why does he believe this? Does he have some secret art appreciation? Does he feel somehow slighted by a painting? Or are we just supposed to think it’s funny he said that. It’s not.

The movie is directed by Taccone and Schaffer and they suck at directing. They pitch the movie as a mockumentary when it’s convenient and as a typical narrative at others. What that means is the audience gets an omniscient point of view when one of the clever powers of the mockumentary is leading the audience to believe there is more to the story than the camera captured. 

There are a lot of gags in Popstar but their impact is muted. First, they’re hurt by how little they have to do with the characters or the story. Second, Taccone and Schaffer present jokes sort of like an autistic kid asking a girl to prom: they get the idea out there and then mumble and stumble around until an easy escape presents itself. Half of the humor is so incongruous or lame it should have been dumped. But then, this wouldn’t be movie-length. It would only be enough for an MTV special, which is actually the level of quality we’re talking about here.

Popstar has a shitload of cameos--mostly by rappers--that are wimpy and have the feel of inside joke we aren’t in on. I got the distinct impression that they were there mostly just so the people involved could show be in a mutual-admiration club. Maybe the people got something out of the cameos, but as an audience member I sure as hell didn’t.

I fucking hated Conner. I hated his sidekicks. I hated that there was no story here and that nobody even tried to make me care. Unlike my old high school classmates who didn’t invite me to their graduation parties, though, Popstar is easy to forget. I won’t spend untold nights fantasizing my revenge. Two Fingers.