Pitch Perfect 1 & 2

[Day 20 of Blaugust 2015!]

One is in tune and the other isn't.

In this comedy/musical, the college acapella group called the "Barden Bellas" has never won the championships before, and due to an embarrassing performance (and some others graduating) lose most of their old members. Basically it's a come back story, but it's one done pretty well and it surprisingly has decent actors and talented singers behind it.

I must admit I didn't have high hopes when starting this up but I was hooked from right from the acapella universal opening. It helps that the story has many funny parts and while some don't quite hit the mark the rest is pretty good.

Shower Singing Time!

It's also a clever move to let the audience know the quirky new team individually, at least the few main ones, as well as some of their adversaries. Now there were a few things I was going "huh?" about such as the whole thing taking place in college with no actual studying (other than singing) taking place but that does help with the pacing I suppose.

Also they threw in some silly excuse later how one of their number can hit notes not usually available to females along with a little bit of digital editing sound wise in the group performances but by that stage I was too invested in the characters to care. Still, the solo and duet parts usually were the best for me, and much like the cup song... I did miss them when they were gone and the movie ended. All up I give it three and a half chords out of five and, as shocked as I am to admit it, would like to see it again.

~~~

The second movie takes place three years later and much like before it opens with an embarrassing performance by the "Bellas" which lands them in hot water from the acapella committee (those two announcers are hilarious), challenging them to either win the World championship or be disbanded. Once again, there's no college and fortunately most of the cast from the first film return here along with a few new faces, including their new German rival group who are the favorites to win.

Unfortunately the story is nowhere near as good, and neither is the singing which has almost all been digitally touched and most of it is group based. Especially with the expectations from the first film I didn't really find myself saying "hey, that's pretty awesome". In fact I think I only did that in Snoop Dogg's cameo.

During the World competition you also don't really get to see any of the other groups properly - it's just a quick montage and to top it off most of the songs aren't even fully performed or have commentary over the top of them possibly to entice people to buy the music CDs. It's quite a shame that it took such a nose dive here and it only gets two chords out of five from me. I also have no intention of watching it again. Watch the first one if you haven't, but don't bother with the second outing.

Yes you did.