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| "We're probably gonna be the only people to hold this together. You with me?" |
Pitch Perfect undeniably proves two points: Glee is, at best, a finite concept, and Anna Kendrick probably would have made a better Bella Swan than Kristen Stewart.
Based on Mickey Rapkin's novel of the same name, which documented Rapkin's year of covering competitive collegiate acapella, Pitch Perfect apes a lot of what made Glee very popular in its first season: ragtag misfits brought together by their love of song, self-aware riffing on competitive singing, and a fondness for mash-ups. Director Jason Moore melds all those qualities in with some decent performances to make a flick that is frequently funny yet fails to fall into the very traps it spends half its runtime making fun of.
Anna Kendrick is at the center of Pitch Perfect as Beca, a Barden University freshman who would rather pursue her dreams of becoming a DJ than attend Intro to Philosophy. After slumming and moping for a semester, her college professor father makes a deal with her: one more semester of giving it the college try and making friends in exchange for the chance to go to to LA and pursue her dreams, with full financial support and no questions asked. To appease her father, Beca joins one of Barden's many competitive acapella groups, the all-female Barden Belles, a group trying erase a legacy of losing Barden's star acapella group: the, pompous, Treblemakers. Immediately, Beca's alt-pop style clashes with lead the Belles, Aubrey (Anna Camp) and Chloe (Brittany Snow), and their Pan Am cum Mad Men airline attendant aesthetic, but her pipes, and those of a collection of misfit toys that includes Rebel Wilson's spunky Fat Amy, are just what they need to win regionals, nationals, etc, and become glee club...I mean...competitive acapella champs.
By compressing what is effectively an entire season of Glee, with scraps of every entry in the Bring It On franchise thrown in for some padding, into a roughly two-hour package, Moore has made a far more palatable version of a narrative that has become insufferable and disposable thanks to more than a decade of overexposure. Granted many of plotlines and jokes are nakedly recycled from Glee, Bring It On, and any number of ripoffs of both, Pitch Perfect possesses a willingness to be deliberately wacky and ribald that exceeds many of its predecessors that makes it more consistently funny than either series has been in a very long time. When the comedic highlight of the movie revolves more around pure gross out humor rather than silly misunderstandings (though the misunderstandings are there), it shows that is Moore is playing on a slightly different level. Not to mention, ninety percent of Wilson's antics as Fat Amy are slightly more clever and far more hilarious than anything found in a typical episode of Glee or any of the Bring It On flicks since the first.
Kendrick and Wilson are, unsurprisingly, the major components of Pitch Perfect's success. Kendrick, who is youthful and deft enough to have played a high school student, college student, and post grad professional all within five years, brings a Tina Fey-like wryness to her role as the girl who is clearly to cool for all this acapella foolishness. She delivers sly digs with an ease and drollness that would surely have made her a better fit to bring life to a dry character like Bella Swan. Conversely, she also handles the more dramatic moments with more subtlety than deserved, even if her romance with Dane Cook-alike, Skylar Astin, is far too tepid to even register as barely interesting. On the other hand, Rebel Wilson delivers solid gags with alarming frequency, most of which are, sadly, at the expense of her characters weight and antithetical overconfidence rather than her any intrinsic cleverness. But, hey, Hollywood. Anna Camp makes a valiant effort to squeeze some life out of her thankless role as head Belle, but it is mired in too much cliche to be special. Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins are, however, a pretty welcome presence as a pair of jaded color commentators covering a "sport" with such visible disdain that they almost act as the purest audience surrogates to ever infiltrate such a flick.
Despite some solid performances and fairly consistent laughs, you've seen Pitch Perfect before, likely on a Blockbuster/Redbox/Netflix/VOD night. The plot goes exactly where expected and there are few if any surprises to be found in any of the characters individual narratives, which should be enough for the Gleeks and Cheerios. The musical performances are fairly engaging, with a few memorable mashups, as long as you are willing to believe that every actor is using their real signing voice. Pitch Perfect is the type of flick that appeals explicitly to a certain demographic, almost to the exclusion of all others, and often ends up as a guilty pleasure to those who fall outside of the target demo. But, those who might find themselves accidentally, or intentionally, enjoying Pitch Perfect needn't be ashamed. There's a modicum of talent behind and in front of the camera, and the flick is unquestionably entertaining for most of its runtime. So, to that end, Moore and his cast and crew have done achieved their relatively modest goal of crafting a fluffy piece of entertainment that does little to enlighten or educate but constantly delivers laughs, intentional and otherwise. And, really, how much more could be expected from such a modest endeavor?
In-Between The Scenes Observations
- Anna Kendrick can sing...or can she?
- Rebel Wilson is hilarious, but watching her, you can't help but countdown her fifteen minutes. It's sad, but comedians with a specific schtick usually have a short fame-span.
- With a little less star wattage, this would have gone straight to ABC Family.
- We now have an idea of how Glee will continue into the college years. It will become: Acapella!
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