Movie Review

Music makes the movie in ridiculously funny Popstar

Some of the most awesomely stupid tunes ever made can be attributed to comedy trio the Lonely Island — aka Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone. Their songs “Lazy Sunday,” “D*** in a Box,” and “I’m on a Boat,” reached near iconic status after debuting on Saturday Night Live. So it's a wonder that it took this long for their work to be showcased on the big screen.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping takes a mockumentary approach to the life of Conner4Real (Samberg), the breakout star from boy band the Style Boyz, which he started with his two best friends, Owen (Taccone) and Lawrence (Schaffer). A highly successful solo debut album puts Conner on the path to superstardom, but a poorly considered second album forces him to fight to stay relevant in the music business.

The naive egotism that Conner displays through much of the film is a highly familiar comedic trope, one that seems to be favored by other SNL alums like Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell. But Samberg makes it work by stopping short of complete idiocy, keeping the film somewhat grounded in reality even while showing an almost continuous stream of absurd scenes.

And there is no shortage of ridiculousness in the film. Real music stars like Adam Levine, Pink, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, Carrie Underwood, Seal, Usher, and Ringo Starr line up to pay tribute to Conner, praise that is hilariously at odds with the inanity he shows on a daily basis. The veiled potshots at people like Justin Bieber (the movie’s title is reminiscent of his 2011 documentary, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never) and Macklemore (one of Conner’s missteps is an obvious parody of the rapper’s “Same Love”) make the movie even better.

But it’s the music that elevates the movie to greatness. Winners include the “Same Love” parody “Equal Rights”; "I'm So Humble"; “Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)”; “Mona Lisa”; and “Legalize It,” a supremely funny song that’s worth staying through the credits for.

Samberg is the star, but Taccone and Schaffer (who co-directed and co-wrote the film) are his equals in every way, selling the movie’s comedy with their reactions as much as anything else. Also great are Tim Meadows as the band’s manager and Sarah Silverman as Conner’s publicist. The succession of cameos, including Bill Hader, Will Arnett, Justin Timberlake, Weird Al Yankovic, and more keep the laughs rolling.

Popstar doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to music mockumentaries, but it’s a consistently funny film that knows how to deliver on its premise. That’s a lot more than can be said of most summer comedies.

Andy Samberg in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

Andy Samberg in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Photo by Glen Wilson

Andy Samberg in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first but not by much

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films likeM3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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