Contributed By Yong Yung Shin
Granted, Justin Bieber is a talented kid who taught himself to sing and play the guitar as well as the drum before he was even out of toddlerhood, but it by no means justifies this pointless documentary counting down the days to his concert at the venue of all venues, New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Obviously released to coincide with his concert tours, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never repeatedly captures fans in every slice of the female demography, from five-year-olds to Scar Jo-lookalikes and middle-aged women, going into mindless hysterics over the moppy-haired boy wonder. Nothing wrong with that per se (hey, we had our MJ and Backstreet Boy infatuations ourselves), but to pay double the price (yes, it’s in 3D) and have your eardrums pierced over and over again by ultrasonic squeals (both onscreen and next to you) is not a pleasant experience.
It all comes across as a massive ego trip, barring a funny bit where the movie breaks the fourth wall and chastises viewers to stop texting on their phone—obviously, it’s well aware of Bieber’s polarizing effect on the global pop music-loving community. Until Rebecca Black’s “Friday” Bieber’s “Baby” music video on YouTube was the most disliked.
Signed on by his current talent manager Scooter Braun and Usher (he allegedly beat Justin Timberlake to the bid), Bieber learns firsthand the price of celebrity—a weekend of fun with his friends back home results in a sore throat, causing him to cancel a major gig. When his voice coach admonishes him, in a more-than-slightly creepy manner, that this was what he signed up for and that it was either all or nothing, one cannot help but wonder if it really was what Bieber thought he’d signed up for. After all, history has shown time and again that fame is not the best plaything for a child star.
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