Film Review: Pitch Perfect 2

Anna Kendrick and Co are back with the sequel to 2012’s American musical comedy smash hit Pitch Perfect. The Bellas are back after taking over the acapella national championships three years prior. After an unfortunate incident at a performance in front of the president is shown on national news, the Bellas are to be given the axe by Barden College unless they win the world championships in Copenhagen, but an aca-troupe of threatening Germans and their own confidence issues may stand in their way.

First of all, if you go into this movie expecting any drastic changes in tone or in the approach to the writing from the last installment then you will be extremely disappointed. The sequel follows pretty much exactly the same formula as it’s predecessor, and this is not necessarily a bad thing in this instance. Despite the changeover of directors from Jason Moore to Elizabeth Banks – her first full length directing credit – the general feel of the characters and the execution of the movie feels almost identical.

Still delightfully over the top and with enough adolescent humour to charm the back legs off a donkey. The acapella songs, around which the movie are based, are brilliantly executed and blend together extremely well. The music is often incorporated into the story a lot more smoothly than in the original, relying a lot less on character’s just spontaneously bursting into song – a trait in musical movies I actively despise. A few of my favourite songs incorporated into the movie included: Thong Song, My Songs Know What You DId in The Dark, Who Run The World and Promises (Nero). There were, however, moments where the music seemed to flow less well. In a particular sing off scene, each acapella group manages to flawlessly create reproductions of songs on the spot, which was my main gripe with the first movie and though the sequel does this a lot less, it still went a way to annoy me. Another moment is when Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) is singing a solo while navigating a boat across a lake. Music to accompany her comes, seemingly, out of nowhere as she had none of the Bellas around her and though it was a funny scene, it served only to pull me out of the story.

The story is very character driven, like the first, and seems to try and push for the development of other characters rather than put the main focus on Anna Kendrick as they seemed to do before. This is not to say that Kendrick did not recieve her own storyline, she did, it just didn’t seem as developed. The introduction of new character Emily Junk (Hailee Steinfeld, Ender’s Game) seemed to take precedence, with her arc pulled closer to the centre – setting up a third sequel with Emily at the centre perhaps? Also, Fat Amy gets her own romantic storyline in the story, though this is basically just a parody of Beca and Jesse’s arc from the previous film, and is included as more of a comedic plot device than to build any actual character development. To be frank, that is how Rebel Wilson’s character is used throughout the movie, being used as comic fodder for almost the entirety, which is a shame really, but it did produce some genuine hilarity within. The Bellas are cast in such a way that can be compared to Netflix show Orange is the New Black, with variety and inclusion of all colours and sexualities so as to increase the representation across the board in the main cast, which is a huge step forward in cinema slowly becoming very prominent in media.  The rest of the cast is filled with amazing cameos for the more sharp eyed. An example of these include: Barack and Michelle Obama, comedian Reggie Watts, Jo Lo Truglio (Brooklyn Nine-nine), the Green Bay Packers and YouTube personality DJ Flula.

Despite it’s (extremely) predictable plotline and it’s very sudden ending that leaves you asking ‘was.. was that it?’, Pitch Perfect is a very good follow-up and is a very enjoyable product, even if it is a film one can just switch off to. 7/10.

For Fans of: Pitch Perfect (2012), Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), Mean Girls (2004)