REPRISING the kind of musical performances, campus high jinks, stinging humour and sassy sisterhood on display in its eminently likeable predecessor, Pitch Perfect 2 remixes the elements and comes up with something even slicker and sharper. As the film's Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) might say, they've crushed it.
However, with more characters in play in addition to the regulars, returning screenwriter Kay Cannon and castmember-producer Elizabeth Banks have to scramble hard to keep all the component parts in harmony. That means some endearing elements from the first movie, like the romance between Beca (Anna Kendrick) and her tenor boyfriend Jesse (Skylar Astin), barely get a look-in. But that won’t stop this from being a smash.
Pitch Perfect started by putting all-girl campus a cappella group the Barden Bellas on the back foot when their leader, Aubrey (Anna Camp), blows chunks all over the audience at the national champs. Here, four years on from the events of the first film, the humiliation is even greater when Fat Amy's spandex outfit splits in the middle of a performance in front of President Obama and the first lady to reveal she's gone commando. That mishap gets the Bellas officially reprimanded by the overlords of competitive a cappella's governing body, podcasting co-presidents Gail (Banks) and John (John Michael Higgins).
Although the terms of the disciplinary action prohibit the Bellas from holding auditions, there's nothing in the ruling that says they can't take on “legacy” members like eager freshman Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), whose mom (Katey Sagal) was a legendary, five-octave-ranged member of the group back in the 1980s. Another new face is that of Flo (Chrissie Fit), a Central American transfer student who keeps dropping references to her impoverished childhood into the conversation.
With Aubrey graduated and gone, Chloe (Brittany Snow) is now the group's choreographer, with Beca in charge of arrangements. But due to a new job interning at a record label, Beca's attention is divided, and her confidence is eroded when she sees what they're up against when they arrive at the world competition in Copenhagen.
Taking on the antagonist function, now that some of the girls are openly dating members of The Treblemakers, is Teutonic supergroup Das Sound Machine, an arrogant bunch of “Deutschbags” as Fat Amy terms them, led by the Kommissar (Dane Birgitte Hjort Sorensen from Borgen). As the Bellas are bested and intimidated by them in a series of throw-downs, the girls start to forget what makes them special, resulting in misguided stage experiments
There's a helluva lot going on here plot- and character-wise, and what with extra flesh being put on the bones of characters played by rising stars like Wilson and a romantic subplot involving Steinfeld's Emily and magic-and-music geek Benji (Ben Platt), key supports are left with variations on the same gags they had in the original.
Musically, the songbook is a far hipper, more youth-skewed selection, featuring a lot more new-millennium material.
Executive music producers Julianne Jordan and Julia Michels have ensured that every performance is note-perfect and soundtrack-album ready, which rather detracts from any sense of realism: it's simply not possible for groups to sing this in-sync spontaneously on the first try of every tune, and perhaps more of a look at the rehearsal work involved could have enhanced the story.
With nimble assists from all below-the-line departments, Banks, Cannon and the cast have crafted a sequel that's edgier, sexier and, best of all, more female-centric than its predecessor. The film should also help put an end to that stupid old debate about whether women can be as funny as men. – Reuters/ Hollywood Reporter