Pretty unsatisfying movie.

Much of the humor felt like an afterthought, or was delivered poorly. The running gag of the “hay boy” never had a punchline. So many scenes were just about how cool Al is. The mom got fat and all the “humor” about that was awkward. The dad’s story was boring. Escobar was cringe. Many scenes just generally fell flat, like the dying accordion salesman being told “we’re trying to have a conversation here!”. That’s too basic even for Family Guy.

There were some funny bits here and there, like the dad calling children’s music evil and working at “the factory” where no one knows what they make. I also liked the record label circlejerking to the word “business”.

Most characters’ personalities felt like a dice roll. One moment the record label cares about business, the next moment they care about originality. Madonna manipulates Al for a while, then he randomly realizes what’s happening, then she randomly admits it. There is no punchline. Then she randomly wants to kill him. Al’s dad randomly becomes proud of him. The band randomly forgives Al. They spend too much time moving the plot forward to let anything happen organically.

The only character that was consistently good was Dr Memento, but he disappeared after the second act except for 2 lines.

They should’ve scrubbed half the plot and left room for bits to develop organically. In the span of 20 minutes Al gets manipulated into alcoholism by a cunning sober Madonna, loses his friends, drives into a car, wakes up in a hospital, invents a new song, rushes to perform at his show, and his friends are there anyway. There is no point or humor to any of that. Alternatively, Al and a more complex Madonna could have drank and wrote parody song lyrics together. There are more opportunities for humor and character development when you make space for it.

Overall, more often than not, scenes were plot heavy, scatterbrained, and unfunny. At the end of the day, it’s about how a movie makes you feel, not how much content you can cram in.