I’ve never been a big one for musicals. I’m one of the few people that used to fast forward through all of the singing parts in Glee. One thing I like about Pitch Perfect is that despite the fact that it’s about music, it isn’t too heavy on the music. The characters aren’t randomly bursting into song every three minutes, which made this premise tolerable for me. But it’s really the humor that sells it. While I will say the story is there, it’s a bit been there done that.
In this installment, we are again introduced to a perky acapella singing group, after they suffer an embarrassing mishap onstage. They then fight to get into an international acapella competition to redeem themselves and their group. To be honest, this premise was almost exactly the same as the first. If you really need to know it, just go watch Pitch Perfect. The only thing that changed is the venue.
Luckily, the snarky humor was there. It still has the breezy humor of the first, and is a movie that makes you fall in love with it, as it makes fun of itself. The actors brought the same energy they had and when it comes to laughs and dialog, it didn’t fall flat.
One area where it did fail was the failure to use Kendric. While the first movie really centered on her, she’s more of an afterthought in this one. That’s a shame, because I like my heroines with a bit of edge. She’s still edgy in this one, but we just don’t see as much of her.
This time around, it’s Rebel Wilson who takes center stage. That’s a bit of a problem, as Wilson is and always has been a one note character. She had charm and great comic shtick, but a little of her goes a long way and focusing the film around her felt kind of exhausting. I feel like if they’d toned her down a bit, it would have been more tolerable.
The music is a bit overproduced for something that’s supposed to be acapella. It’s almost too perfect and it causes a bit of a disconnect between the story and the sound. The scenes with the other groups in the international competition were amusing, but they went a bit too far with the stereotypes and turned every other country into a weird cliché.
There are a bit too many storylines going on as well. They really didn’t need to add as much as they did. There were lots of side plots about Beca’s secret internship that really didn’t need to be there. I also wasn’t 100% sure why she was hiding it. I mean, she’s a senior in college. Of course she’s going to secure her future, right? They could have removed that part entirely and the movie wouldn’t have suffered for it. It also would have felt a bit cleaner.
I will say it was worth the watch. It just wasn’t quite as good at the first go-around.
WE GAVE IT: 4 Stars – Watch the Official Trailer and Official Movie Poster below!
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