'Katy Perry: Part of Me 3-D' review: Baby, she really is a firework

I'll be honest: Everything I know about Katy Perry, I learned from my 14-year-old. I know that she kissed a girl and she liked it. I know that, baby, she's a firework. And I know that on the scale of current teen obsessions, she ranks somewhere up there with Lady Gaga and whoever sings that "Here's my number, so call me, maybe" song you've been hearing all summer.

0706 katy perry in part of me 3d.JPGPop star Katy Perry busts a move with her furry pal Kitty Purry in an image from the concert-documentary 'Katy Perry: Part of Me 3-D.' The film opens today (July 5) instead of the traditional Friday, to get an early jump on the weekend.

I also know that I am in no way, shape or form the target audience for "Katy Perry: Part of Me 3-D." A fan-friendly concert documentary focusing on the candy-coated pop star, this a movie mostly intended for the kind of shrieking teenager who would be set aquiver by the pink-and-blue 3-D glasses that Paramount distributed to ticket-holders attending nationwide advance screenings earlier this week.

Generally speaking, the paunchy 42-year-old men in the audience shouldn't be considered fans. They should be considered suspects.

"Part of Me" is part of the recent trend in concert documentaries in which pop artists promise their fans more than just a pre-recorded concert. Mixed in with the obligatory performance footage are peeks backstage, discussions of the given artist's songwriting process, and at least token biographical information.

Given that they're made primarily for fans -- by definition an indiscriminate lot when it comes to their respective idols -- they don't necessarily have to be any good, really. They just have to have lots of singing, lots of dancing, lots of posing, lots of blowing of kisses.

'Katy Perry: Part of Me' movie trailer Opens Thursday, July 5, in New Orleans Watch video
Some of them are good, though, and "Part of Me" is one of that lot, largely because Perry is the kind of magnetic, energetic figure who is easy to like. Playful and upbeat, and the owner of a nice set of pipes, her real talent is in her ability to lift people up and make them smile.

So we get the obligatory biographical details, charting Perry's rise from 13-year-old Pentecostal-raised gospel artist to L.A. party girl struggling to find her stage voice to international superstar. We also get lots of footage -- on stage and backstage -- from her recent "California Dreams" tour, showcasing her performance skills as well as her singular, Bettie Page-meets-Candyland fashion sense.

Of course, as with all movies of the genre, Perry has a hand in the production, so it's a carefully curated image that audiences will be getting. Still, she allows the cameras backstage when she's at her most vulnerable, which suggests that what we're seeing is at least a little more authentic than what fans of this kind of movie are used to getting.

What it reveals is a woman who is buckling under the grind of a yearlong tour schedule. That means we see her at the brink of exhaustion -- admittedly standard fare for this kind of film -- but we also see her in the throes of depression, curled up in a ball and sobbing over the dissolution of her marriage to English comedian Russell Brand.

The sight of that level of despair should be met with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it! stands to inflate Brand's ego -- which is just what we need -- but it also assures that the portrait of Perry that emerges isn't just one of an artist, but of a person.

Perry might not necessarily be the most electric dancer working the concert circuit today -- if nothing else, her movie exposes that little detail -- but she has an absolutely electric personality. Yes, baby, she is a firework -- and a firecracker -- and that comes across in what ends up being a surprisingly enjoyable film.

So, yes, I saw "Katy Perry: Part of Me" -- and I liked it.

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KATY PERRY: PART OF ME 3-D
3 stars, out of 5

Snapshot: A dual biography/concert documentary about pop star Katy Perry.

What works: Perry is an inarguably electric personality, and while the film is mostly for her already-devoted fans, her charm likely will win over nonfans as well.

What doesn't: As with all the films that belong to the recently en-vogue pop-doc genre, things are spoiled a bit with the knowledge that what we're getting is a carefully curated image.

Featuring: Perry, Shannon Woodward, Lucas Kerr, Glen Ballard. Directors: Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz. Rating: PG, for some suggestive content, language, thematic elements and brief smoking. Running time: 1 hour and 57 minutes. Where: Find New Orleans showtimes.