Hello world! Look at me! Look at the baby genius I was! Look at the musical virtuoso I am, and look at all the fat, geeky, buck-toothed and bimbotic pre-teens with too much make-up going positively ape-shit over me! And yes, look at that hair, baby. Everybody loves me. In 3D!
That pretty much sums up the whole documentary, with live, surround-sound screams throughout the film, even before it starts rolling. While we initially thought we were not going to hear anything but audience screaming (mostly grown-up professionals, mind), it wouldn’t have mattered if they kept mum, for most of the flick consists of 10-year-olds screaming at Bieber’s hair anyway. The biggest crisis he faces here? Getting a sore throat because he ate too much junk food and having to postpone a couple of concerts for that bad behavior. Oh, Bieber, you naughty, naughty boy.
It’s really disturbing seeing the reaction of American pre-teen girls to Bieber in the film. “Like, omigawd, getting a free front-row ticket to one of Bieber’s concerts is the best thing that’s happened in my life. AAAAAAAH!” Yeah, this docu-film makes a point of showing how kind Bieber and troupe are, giving out front-row tickets to random people at shows.
Granted, the kid is talented—you get from this the fact that he taught himself to play drums, guitar and piano before he could walk. But with all that fawning, all that adulation from fans, family, friends and industry big-wigs saturating every scene, it makes one wonder: Did the 17-year-old Bieber willingly agree to be part of this flagrant ego-pic? And if he did, this just shows us he’s got an ego bigger than the universe.
We sat through all this (quite a feat) with an incredulous expression plastered on our face, and we couldn’t help muttering, “You’ve gotta be f**king kidding me,” at many points in the film, all involving psycho fangirls. No worries about being heard—there was just too much screaming going on. The whole thing was just one big awful bore. There isn’t much 3D in this either—most of it only comes into play during his concert scenes, which are shockingly unspectacular.
This one’s strictly for Beliebers—believe us.