There is a definitive climactic feel to everything about the latest venture from The Lonely Island, as if a culmination of everything the trio has been working towards since "Lazy Sunday" debuted over ten years ago. Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer have always had a knack for writing these catchy, hilarious spoofs of trending musical styles by taking timely and/or brutally honest perspectives and applying them to legit beats created by credible producers. The trick is they convey their sometimes cutting commentary and other times all out ridiculousness with the mentality of the pop culture machine in that it all feels superfluous and can be enjoyed for its surface level pleasures, but if one cares to look-there is more there. The Lonely Island have applied that same approach and ideology to their latest feature film project as this is very much a mockumentary that is lampooning the trend of pop stars producing their own "behind the scenes" documentaries in order to both appeal further to their established fan base while hopefully converting a few of the uninitiated as well. Out of the big, sprawling narrative we call life the managing teams around the likes of Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, and One Direction have crafted three-act narratives around their phenomenon's in order to give some sense of structure to lives that likely have very little of it. The Lonely Island have taken the idea of this type of branding and selling and picked out every aspect in which they can make fun of thus creating the perfect vessel of sorts for them to both create their own music and release it simultaneously while adding the all-important visual element to those songs in the form of a feature film. As a longtime fan of The Lonely Island and pretty much all they stand for
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping feels like that aforementioned culmination due to the fact this format provides the perfect stage for the type of comedy and social commentary The Lonely Island has always been good at, but have now been afforded the chance to do so on a much bigger scale. Are there issues with the film as a whole? Sure, a few, but to pick out the minor quibbles would be to detract from how much fun it is to watch this deconstruction of not only the music industry, but pop culture in general and the near perfect execution with which it pulls off the task it sets out to accomplish.
