don't forget to do the Donkey Roll!

Rating: 8/10 (8 June 2016)

This is a silly gut-busting delight, the kind of movie that I'd see with my dad if I saw more movies with him - it's basically what I'd call "Son of Spinal Tap" and like when you got the "Son of" movies of old (Song of Kong, Son of Frankenstein, whatever) it's not up to par with that, but then that's among the funniest comedies of all time. The "Lonely Island" team may take on some targets who are almost so obscenely ridiculous in real life - ie Justin Bieber's comments after leaving the Anne Frank house - but they have an excellent instinct for taking on these targets in the pop music world of today, which is just about unlistenable in many respects, and throwing on the silliness and vulgarity but the vulgarity works because it's from a place that's not really mean.
The main character of Samberg's, "Connor 4-Real", is one of those lovable self-obsessed idiots of the movies who works because he is so unaware of how dickish he acts to people around him. There are times where the improv approach as it's an Apatow production by the way goes on a bit too long, mostly in the second half of the movie (the first half fires on all cylinders and largely in part due to the songs and music videos with themes like "I'm so Humble" and f***ing a woman as if it was killing Bin Laden!) But on the whole I found a lot of really sharp actors around Samberg - Tim Meadows, Sarah Silverman, Justin Timberlake, and many other 'real' people (and a helluva running cameo from Will Arnett, the highlight of the movie for me as a "CMZ" chief editor ala TMZ) - that makes it consistently funny.
And it's the kind of dopey modern satire I like if it has to be done this way at a big studio level: keep the gags and jokes coming, even if they involve penises (and this movie has one of the better ones), and if there's a gag that falls flat there's one in a minute that will keep the pace back up, whether it has to do with "10 seconds to Mars" (it's a band, not a fact) or unexpected celebrities like Seal and the Rza. Call it a semi-guilty pleasure but I had a lot of laughs here, and more than some other SNL movies I can think of.