Tells the story of Justin Bieber, the kid from Canada with the hair, the smile and the voice: It chronicles his unprecedented rise to fame, all the way from busking in the streets of Stratford, Canada to putting videos on YouTube to selling out Madison Square Garden in New York as the headline act during the My World Tour from 2010. It features Usher, Scooter Braun, Ludacris, Sean Kingston, Antonio "L.A." Reid, Boyz II Men, Miley Cyrus, Jaden Smith, Justin's family members and parts of his crew and huge fanbase in a mix of interviews and guest performances. It was released in 3D in theaters all around the world and is the highest grossing concert movie of all time, beating the previous record held by Michael Jackson's This Is It from 2009.
The movie is cunningly woven to show the tension between his insane success and his determination to remain a sane, normal 16-year-old.
– David Edelstein,
NPR,
11 Feb 2011
fresh:
Bieber's unquestionably gifted, and if he's smart enough to listen to the grounded, talented folk around him, there's every reason to hope that he'll turn out to be just fine when he grows up.
– Tom Charity,
CNN.com,
11 Feb 2011
rotten:
The movie remains so sanitized, so authorized that it never gives us credit for being able to make up our own minds about him and what he represents.
– Stephen Whitty,
Newark Star-Ledger,
11 Feb 2011
fresh:
I find him such a bland, pious, profoundly unthreatening little Furby of a pop idol, but little girls' celebrity crushes are not to be trifled with. And this sensationally engineered promo film makes Justin Bieber look like a true force of nature.
– David Edelstein,
New York Magazine/Vulture,
14 Feb 2011
rotten:
It has come to this: parents who have recorded their children's lives since infancy can see their home films edited into their child's very own 3-D concert documentary.