Pitch Perfect
DIRECTOR: Jason Moore
CAST: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Ester Dean, Chelsea Handler and John Michael Higgins
CLASSIFICATION: 10L
RUNNING TIME: 117 minutes
RATING: ***
Practice makes earworms. Ear-what? You know when someone sings a song, any song, for a little while and it ends up getting stuck in your ear or mind and now you’re singing that song? Yeah, that’s an earworm and Pitch Perfect is full of them.
This musical comedy about an outcast who joins a disgraced a cappella girl group sees everyone and their mommas bust a move and sing a tune. But there are no flashbacks of Zac Efron and ’em, thank goodness.
Beca Mitchell (played by Anna Kendrick whom you’ll know from The Twilight Saga) is a bit of an oddball who has dreams of being a DJ. She makes her own mixes and interns at the campus radio station when she’s not being rebellious towards her recently divorced dad.
Of course, she has no plans of joining Barden University’s a cappella group, the Bellas, since they were involved in a disastrous competition that involved projectile vomit.
But, as these things go, she naturally blows them away with her immaculate voice but her ideas about shaking things up and getting the Bellas back on top are seen as too radical and she butts heads with the resident mean girls.
Beca’s shine is stolen by the hilarious Fat Amy – yes, you read that right – who is played by the effervescent Rebel Wilson and the super talented Ester Dean (who co-wrote Firework by Katy Perry) who plays Cynthia-Rose.
These plus-sized ladies have the most hilarious lines. For instance, Fat Amy, who also specialises in mermaid dancing (I’ll let you think about that one), is asked by the leader of the boy a cappella group if she gets the feeling that they should kiss. Her response is: “Sometimes I have the feeling that I can do crystal meth but then I think, mmm, better not.” The humour in this film is definitely not for kids.
Especially because Chelsea Handler and John Michael Higgins play caustic commentators in each a cappella competition round. To give you a taste of what Higgins’ character thinks of the Bellas – who always seem to dress like air hostesses – he goes on to say, “Women are about as good at a cappella as they are at being doctors.”
Haha. I mean, ouch. Where the likes of High School Musical rely on indoctrinating young people with original compositions about friendship and happily-ever-afters, Pitch Perfect uses current hits and even Blackstreet’s No Diggity (remember that?!) not as a catalyst for the story but just for the fun of it. So, if you like laughing, and don’t mind an earworm, then this is the flick for you.
If you liked… Glee or any High School Musical… you might want to take it up a notch with this.