Popstar - Never Stop Stopping

Date: Sunday August 23, 2026 at 7pm

 Color, Rated R, Mockumentary/Raunchy Comedy with Music, 87 minutes

Directed by Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone

Starring Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone

When the sequel to Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap! was released in 2025, it received polite but less-than-enthusiastic reviews and a polite shrug from audiences. It was clear that, while not a disaster by any means, Spinal Tap II was simply too little, too late. What many viewers may not realize, however, is that a nearly perfect sequel to Spinal Tap! does exist. It’s called Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Rather than a direct follow-up, this below-the-radar comedy is an obvious homage that’s a howlingly funny picture in its own right.

Popstar is the second feature from The Lonely Island, the comedy trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, who emerged in the early 2000s as Saturday Night Live writers and released their first film, Hot Rod, in 2007. It’s a natural evolution of their SNL “Digital Short” series of viral music videos that established the group among the decade’s smartest pop satirists (popular favorites include “I Just Had Sex,” “I’m On a Boat” and…this one). Samberg plays Conner 4 Real (Samberg), a Justin Timberlake-modeled pop singer who rose to fame as a member of boy band “The Style Boyz” (with Schaffer and Taccone) but has recently set out as a solo artist. We meet Conner as he begins the tour for his new record, Connquest, and the film mockumentary soon grows into a gleeful mockumentary send-up of pop industry trends circa 2016, from celebrity activism to online oversharing to invasive sales gimmicks (anyone who remembers U2’s Songs of Innocence being force-downloaded onto listeners’ iPhones will feel a pang of recognition). And true to Lonely Island form, the film is wall-to-wall with celebrity cameos, from music industry luminaries to comedy legends (a personal favorite is when one SNL vet pops up as a roadie with an extremely peculiar hobby).

If Popstar were only funny – and it is, riotously so – then that might be enough to make it an enjoyable 90 minutes. What sets it apart as an underappreciated classic (the film earned a paltry $9.68 million at the box office) is its razor-sharp satire and general good nature. The humor is raunchy and vulgar without ever becoming mean-spirited, and Conner himself is an endearing hero who is frequently the butt of the joke. And regardless of one’s affinity for pop music, it’s undeniable that the film’s utterly ridiculous songs are surprisingly catchy and a near-perfect approximation of chart toppers from their era.

It all results in a movie that remains criminally underseen but proudly carries the legacy and anarchic spirit of Spinal Tap into the 21st century. It’s one of the funniest comedies of the 2010s and, with any luck, may one day achieve the cult status Reiner’s classic deservedly holds. (MVH)