A lot of my friends have been giving me a hard time over my positive review of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, without actually having read the review or watched the movie.

Well unfortunately I can’t show you the movie, but here’s review I wrote for StarWeekender. Tell me what you guys think =)

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Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

Are you a Belieber?

This is going to be the most redundant movie review in history.

No matter what I say about Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Beliebers will watch it and insist it’s Oscar-worthy, and non-Beliebers will hate it without even looking at the trailer.

And it doesn’t help one bit that the first 15 minutes or so of the concert documentary film consists mostly of concert footage of the then 16-year-old star dancing and looking smoulderingly into the camera – in glorious 3D, no less, and interviews with delirious adolescent fans who were literally ALL female.

With an opening like that, Beliebers (as Justin Bieber fans proudly call themselves) would, understandably, be swooned beyond all objective reasoning; while the “haters” – as Justin refers them himself – whom whether of parental duty, curiosity or coercion were stuck watching the movie, will very likely walk out the cinema or choke on their popcorn before the show even really got going.

So whatever I say about the film, a huge chunk of you people reading this will disagree and despise me, mostly without any basis whatsoever. So here goes whatever.

If you survive those opening sequences without requiring resuscitation, losing cognitive function or bolting for the door, you will be treated to a truly remarkable story. I kid you not. Take it from a non-Belieber.

Usher and Boyz II Men performed in the film, but so did Miley Cyrus, Sean Kingston and, worst of all, Jaden Smith.

As a concert film, it’s not up to scratch. It’s cheesy stuff. But I guess you can’t expect much when it features performers like Miley Cyrus, Jaden Smith and Sean Kingston (though there were nice cameos by Boyz II Men, unfortunately relegated to back-up vocals duty by Bieber, and Usher).

It broke the record set by Michael Jackson’s This Is It for being the highest-grossing concert film, but there really isn’t any comparison. One can only take that much of Justin Bieber thrusting his hand out longingly to the audience. I betcha girls with 3D glasses on will be reaching out for him in the theatres.

Another picture of the Biebs thrusting his hand out of the screen. It's in 3D, so you can reach back out to him if you want.

And ANOTHER hand-thrusting moment...

What the film really does well, however, is tell Bieber’s story, and that of the people around him.

Never Say Never charts Bieber’s astronomical rise to tweenage super-stardom, from a regular kid with some decent vocal chops and raw performing talent, to a cultural phenomenon that is single-handedly keeping a multi-million-dollar franchise chugging along.

It shows home videos of a clearly talented young(er) Bieber performing at singing competitions, out on the steps of the local theatre at his hometown Stratford, Ontario, and pretty much anywhere and everywhere; the same videos that would go on to clock seven-figure hit counts on YouTube and get him spotted by his current manager Scooter Braun.

The wide-eyed Braun calls it an “underdog story”, because apparently nobody believed that Bieber could be more than a YouTube sensation, and they had to do countless small gigs and radio shows – not to mention catch a lucky break by impressing Usher – before making the big-time.

That story is told as the film documents Bieber’s tour route, showing what goes on behind the scenes of his concerts, which all leads up to the biggest show of his life – Madison Square Garden.

What I found most interesting was the cast and crew of the Bieber show, the people who have adopted him as their son, as their younger brother, and yet whose livelihoods depend on him.

Justin's mother features quite a lot in the show.

While the cameras simply follow Bieber around, from when he’s studying on his tour bus to having a pizza with his best friends during a short break back in Stratford, it’s the people around him that tell his story in interviews, people like his young single mother, grandparents, vocal coach, music director, manager and even his father, who appeared briefly.

His father left the family when Bieber was a few weeks old, but he was at a concert in Canada, and was moved to tears as his son performed.

Throughout the show, Bieber looks like he doesn’t even realise what he’s achieved; that his personality, his ability to perform, his hair, is what’s keeping the show on the road and the millions coming in. In one scene, where he gets his hands on an electric shaver, he jokingly threatens to shave his hair off to the horror of his vocal coach.

Cue the horror music: Justin joking about shaving his hair off. His entourage didn't find it funny.

The kid is almost oblivious. He just wants to perform (which he’s not too bad at), and, like most any teenager, to mess around, impress the girls and show some swagger.

And that’s what makes it even more difficult for the crew, who are desperately trying to keep the tour going, trying to manage a 16-year-old doing a gruelling schedule of over 90 shows a year, whilst making sure he gets as normal a childhood as possible, in spite of the thousands and thousands of screaming fans everywhere he goes.

Justin collapsing on a coach backstage after another tiring performance.

If the aim of the film was to convert non-Beliebers, to show audiences the other side of the boy that nobody sees, it does a great job.

You don’t see the cocky heart-throb. Not always, at least. You see an at times vulnerable teenager with incredible belief in his talent, who’s simply living out a dream that he insists he never wanted. It just happened to happen to him.

Perhaps the most memorable moment from the movie is when Braun told of how Bieber was at an awards ceremony when Madonna paid tribute to Michael Jackson, saying he “never had a childhood”, and “how do you recreate your childhood when you are under the magnifying glass of the world for your entire life?”

At that moment, Braun recalled: “He (Bieber) looked at me and said, ‘don’t let that happen to me.’”

While This Is It marked the end of an era, Never Say Never, uninspiring as it is as a concert/performance film, charts the beginning of a new one. It’s not how most of us would like to remember this period in entertainment history, much like how many would have preferred Jackson’s life to have ended differently, but it is what it is.

And in truth, Never Say Never is – probably by design – the story of our times, of the reality TV, social media-driven, American Idol generation. Anybody can make it, as long as you, well, never say never.