Mindless Behavior: All Around the World, A Premature Tribue

Walter Millsap, the co-manager and producer of boy band Mindless Behavior, inadvertently condemns Mindless Behavior: All Around the World, a concert doc and premature tribute to his current clients, as maddeningly superficial as it is when he points out, “At the end of the day, they’re 15 years old.” Throughout the film, Mindless Behavior’s four interchangeable members only project youthful enthusiasm and PR-friendly love for their fans. Princeton, the bad boy, effusively declares in the film’s opening that Mindless Behavior’s 2012 Coca Cola’s Viewer’s Choice Award was the moment when the group “not only knew that we had arrived, but that we were here for good.” That kind of bravado is standard for young pop stars, and the film’s creators exploit the group’s natural, thoughtless enthusiasm. When one talk show host asks Princeton, “How does it feel to be the next big thing?” she already knows how he’ll reply: “Feels good.” All Around the World‘s creators likewise expect viewers to take their subjects’ ostentatious sincerity and generically uplifting message at face value. “To be Mindless means to be true to yourself,” a fan chirrups. Pseudo-candid behind-the-scenes footage, like when Ray Ray, the clown, tells fans to brush their teeth, reveals nothing about the group. Talking-head interviews with the boys, and concert footage where the group performs bland pitch-corrected songs about wooing girls (featuring lyrics like “Instead of shopping malls, take you to the Taj Mahal”) are equally unenlightening. If Ray Ray is right, and, “personality’ll take you farther than talent,” then it’s no wonder these barely-pubescent stars aren’t charming enough to carry their own film yet.