AEG Live, Insurge Pictures, Island Def Jam Music Group
Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Sean Kingston, Ludacris, Jaden Smith, Usher, Pattie Mallette
This is a documentary about Justin Bieber. This film follows him from his early years when he was born in a small town with a large love of music, through the You Tube years, to the present where this kid made a huge mark on the charts. Justin is just plain talented. It also follows him on tour and shows scenes from the shows, so it’s a mix of “Behind the Music” or “Biography” and a concert film. A sure hit for those with Bieber Fever!!!
There have been a lot of concert films coming out lately. Trying to mix in the new techniques in 3D with the music of the particular star, I think they hope to make you feel like you’ve been to a concert. This one is somewhat different in that it has a lot of old footage, home movies, and interviews of family and friends in it mixed in with songs from the concert tour. I did NOT see this in 3D, as I watched it at home on DVD, so if there was a big plus to seeing it in a theater of screaming 9 year old girls, I missed out on that. As such I didn’t rate this film very high because I felt it failed on several levels. First of all, as a documentary, it covers highlights of how baby Justin was a drummer from the crib on, and it starts out with a cute montage of viral youtube clips setting us up for the obvious early Bieber clips to come. That was a clever opening and a quick hook, but there was not nearly enough meat to make this a biography film. Then it mixes in the concert footage and I found it pretty good (Justin is one hell of singer) but that too is lacking because it is too few and far between. I think I could have enjoyed this much more as a one hour Biography segment with the documentary stuff, and a 90 minute concert letting him just entertain. I’m not sure why it was done in this half and half format. I obviously have never seen a Bieber concert, so maybe he can’t hold an audience of grown ups for 90 minutes. Or perhaps since the Jonas Brothers film bombed so badly, that they wanted to put move Bieber history in it to make it more interesting to fans, I’m not sure, but it was disjointed for me and not enough of either story.
Obviously any Bieber fans are going to go crazy for this film, and please feel free to get the Blu-Ray and enjoy it over and over, and I wish you well. It just didn’t work that well for me, although Justin is an interesting subject and the little bugger can really carry a tune. And he’s cute as a button, as they say. I just wasn’t blown away by the way this was edited. (Of course it’s possible I was just being a crotchety old guy who is too tough to please.) If you loved it and though it was very good, please take a moment to comment and tell me why. I’d like to know why I just didn’t seem to get it.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
