Pitch Perfect

So, at first I was totally against seeing this movie, but then I heard everyone raving about it and it has Anna Kendrick and Elizabeth Banks in it so It couldn't be all that bad right? Either way, it's made about $105 million on it's modest $17 million budget.

This movie, apparently based on a novel, centers around a college freshman, played by Anna Kendrick. She's really into 'dropping the beats' (am I saying that right?) and wants nothing more than to move to L.A. to produce music. Her father makes an agreement with her for her to complete her freshman year whilst joining at least one group and if she still doesn't like it, he will pay for her to go out to L.A. Secretly, she's an awesome singer and gets recruited into an all-female glee club that has ran out of members and is letting anyone join. Their ultimate goal is to beat the champion all-male club also at their college.

Well, the plot is pretty predictable even though the characters make fun of predictable plots. There was some satirical moments dripping with wit and then there were some pretty bland generic moments as well. I couldn't quite figure out throughout the movie if they were taking themselves seriously or not, and I'm still unsure. In any case, there were many humorous moments throughout. The pacing was a little off because the parts in-between the humorous bits were rather boring. Most of the physical comedy bits were a little over-the-top for my taste, but they were few and far between. On average, most of the moments aimed for humor hit their mark, there were only a few failed scenes in my personal opinion. The movie was rated PG-13 but I feel like if they had removed those limits and just went for an R rating, this could've been the Bridesmaids of the college glee club genre.

The music was pretty rad. I almost wanted to go out and start DJ-ing after this movie, or at least go back to college and join a glee club. The color palette and wardrobe were incredibly vibrant and made everything pop on the screen. I will say I did notice inconsistencies with the makeup in that there was noticeable jawline discoloration.

What really made this movie was Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson. Unfortunately, Kendrick had to play the grumpy sour-puss for most of the movie and lost out on a bunch of comedic opportunities since she was basically in the scenes to look like the sane character which in turn made the others look even crazier. Wilson was pretty much hilarious in all of her scenes, a la Bridesmaids. The guy from Workaholics (Adam Devine), the girl from True Blood (Anna Camp), and Britney Snow pretty much completed the comedy in the movie. Oh, well Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins had some great moments as the announcers of the movie but their time wasn't maximized. Some of the odd characters were overplayed, i.e. the 'magician' and the girl who was inaudible.

In the end it wasn't as ridiculously hilariously awesome as I was hoping, but it wasn't that bad either. It hit somewhere in the middle between Step Up 13 and Bridesmaids. I think it was a solid effort but it just missed some opportunities for the satire and wit I think it was aiming for. You can't deny that a lot of hard work went into making the film. "Nothing makes a woman feel more like a girl than a man who sings like a boy".