Another week, another Bingeworthy review, cobbled together to meet the deadline. Once again my feeble-minded fans, I am writing something different. It’s still a review but it’s a little late coming to the Odyssey. Over my summer break from the Odyssey, I didn’t see a lot of summer films: i.e. "Superman vs. Batman," "Suicide Squad" and some other third movie I didn’t feel like seeing (not necessarily a superhero movie, but that’s beside the point). I still have the need to review the one movie I did see this summer. So let’s go ahead and review a summer movie: "Popstar."
OK, first thing is first -- do you like Andy Samberg? Of course you do, he’s funny and weird looking, which only add to his comedy. The only problem is that he has overplayed the one character he is “good” at playing: the overly confident imbecile (psst, imbecile is a smart-smart word for idiot). You see that movie "Hot Rod?" Yeah that’s a good and funny film. Maybe you like "That’s My Boy?" No shame, it’s a decent comedy. But "Popstar?" Yeah, that’s where Andy Samberg starts losing his charm. His entire career can pretty much be summed up in his TV show, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." The beginning is funny and kind of enjoyable to watch, but then it gets too into the weirdness that made it funny, now it’s like 100 percent weird.
Granted, "Popstar" is actually a Lonely Island movie (comedy music group with Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone. Wait, why am I telling you this? Everyone and their mother has heard “Dick in a Box,” “I'm on Boat” and “Jizz in my Pants” enough times to know who Lonely Island is. BTW, whenever you spell “island” do you ever say in your head, “is land?” Because I do that like all the time.) As a Lonely Island movie, you expect the songs to be comical. However, instead of the songs being actually comical and well thought out, they really just focus on one gag joke and spread it out to one long song.
Granted the movie has some comedy to it. With an awesome cast including great comedy actors like Sarah Silverman, Tim Meadows, Justin Timberlake, Bill Hader and Maya Rudolf, you are bound to gets some laughs out of it. I guarantee that "Popstar" will make you chuckle and various occasions. However, a chuckle is the most you are going to get out of this movie. One of my biggest problems with "Popstar" is that it lacks “big laughs” -- those jokes that practically make you lose your shit.
All in all, "Popstar" isn’t great. It has its moments of comedy, a great cast and the potential, but it doesn’t live up to its own hype, or the 77% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie underuses great actors who have shown great comedic chemistry with the members of the Lonely Island, i.e. Timberlake and Hader. The movie does provide several good chuckles, but "Popstar" is more like a one-hit wonder.
Score: 2.9
