150 Word Review: 'Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping' (2016)

Donkey role

Photo: Universal Pictures

There aren't enough silly comedies made for and by well-meaning knuckleheads anymore. This is why I re-watched SNL alum Andy Samberg's Popstar, a masterpiece of disposable pop culture absurdism that flopped at the box office.

Popstar is the cinematic equivalent of huffing whippets, a mockumentary that steals from 1984's This Is Spinal Tap and the VH1 series Behind the Music. Instead of lampooning rock, it skewers the bubblegum hip-hop world of 2016, approximately 100 years ago.

Andy Samberg is one of Western civilization's great, rubber-faced morons—a bro clown with a whoopee cushion for a heart. Popstar tells the rise-and-fall-and-rise story of three god-awful white boy rappers, the Style Boyz, played by Samberg and his comedic collaborators, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. The movie is crammed with straight-faced celebrity cameos from Questlove, DJ Khaled, and Mariah Carey. The songs are a perfect mix of top 40 parody and mild concussion.

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