Stupid but harmless vehicle for Saturday Night Live star Molly Shannon, taking her ongoing skit about a bizarre Catholic school girl named Mary Katherine Gallagher and adapting it to the big screen, with expected results.
Directed by another alumnus of TV sketch comedy, Kids in the Hall's Bruce McCulloch, Superstar is a mercifully short account of Mary's attempts to get into her high school's big talent show. The story, naturally, takes a back seat to the gags. In fact it's clear that almost nobody involved in the making of Superstar is taking their work seriously, and thus the film itself feels halfhearted. "It's just for laughs" isn't a valid excuse for not putting in any effort.
There are some whimsical directorial touches – it's amusing that all the high schoolers are played by people in their thirties, and if you look closely, you'll note that every car in the background is a green Volkswagen bug – but the movie's "silliness for its own sake" approach quickly wears thin. The ballsy Molly Shannon has definitely got talent, however. Even though this is a character of her own design, she deserves better. Her hyperactive costar Will Farrell, on the other hand, seems to be born for forgettable fluff like this.