Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

I don't particularly enjoy Justin Bieber's brand of pubescent pop songs, which have been strategically written to make teenage girls swoon and hand over their hard-earned allowances for concert tickets, CDs, and all sorts of Bieber-flavored merchandise. I find his music as generic as pop music comes. Catchy choruses that get stuck in your head for days, because they've been engineered to latch onto your brain like leeches. Tunes covering broad subjects like love, matters of the heart, and getting jiggy with it. His music isn't for me, let's just leave it at that. So, is that reason enough for me to shut Bieber's movie 'Never Say Never' out? Is not being a fan of his music enough cause for me to completly write off the documentary about the kid who sings it? Not so fast.

I, like many other American men, have culled an unfounded hate for a kid I hardly know. He's rich, famous, and talented I'm not. It's that simple, right? He's got it all. He's living the life. It's easy to begrudge him his success. After watching 'Never Say Never' my tone is changing just a little bit. So what if the kid is successful. Don't we all want to be successful doing something that we love?

The reason why 'Never Say Never' works (yes I said works) as a movie is that it's an honest to goodness documentary. Sure Bieber's concert footage is sprinkled in here and there, but this documentary was actually well thought out. It isn't just an advertisement for Bieber Mania, which it easily could have been. 'Never Say Never' works on a few levels.

This isn't just a movie about a kid who became rich and famous overnight, there are many weightier subjects at work here. Take for example the power of social media, and if used right, how it can indeed create worldwide superstars. Justin Bieber isn't powered by Disney or Nickelodeon, but through social media he was able to rise to popularity faster than most musical acts. The power of YouTube is an amazing thing. The internet made Bieber's music available to the world, then the pre-teen girls spread it like wild fire, and before we knew it we had a new music superstar.

The movie counts down the days until Bieber's big Madison Square Garden concert. As his poppy songs blare in the background we get a glimpse of what he was like as a kid. Here's where some respect has got to be paid to him. Most of these pop singers nowadays couldn't play an instrument if their lives depended on it. Most of them have decent vocals, a pretty face and that's it. Bieber is actually, believe it or not, a respectable musician by any measure. Yes he dances around on stage to music that sounds reminiscent of The Backstreet Boys, but we're soon shown that young Bieber was playing guitar, drums, piano and singing at a very young age. The kid was born with musical talent, that much is true.

'Never Say Never' also touches on the dangers of childhood celebrity. How does a 16 year-old kid deal with ultra-fame? When do the rigors of that lifestyle begin to wear someone out? We get a glimpse of the toll it's taken on him after he has to cancel shows because of swollen vocal chords. Eighty plus shows in a year will do that to you, I guess. I don't sing, but even I think that many shows would wreak havoc on vocal chords that haven't quite finished going through puberty yet.

I'm not a Bieber apologist by any means. Hate him, love him, that's completely up to you. The one thing you shouldn't do though is write 'Never Say Never' off as just another money grab from a teenage icon who's cashing in on his celebrity. While a bit of the film feels like a promo reel of why we should all have Bieber Fever, the rest of it actually raises some important questions and attempts to answer them truthfully. Heaven help me, but 'Justin Bieber: Never Say Never' is a good movie.