Won't Miss This When It's Gone

Rating: 4/10 (26 May 2015)

Considering I went into this film with low expectations after strongly disliking the first film, I didn't think this Pitch Perfect could be as weak as the first, well I was wrong. Where the first one struggled with taking itself way too seriously and up and down tone issues, this film veered off in too many directions and ended up being too goofy and uninteresting. I understand comedy sequels are difficult. But look at 22 Jump Street, that film took the exact same premise of the first and what people liked and executed the same movie with new jokes. Perhaps I'm just not the target audience here. I know a lot of people love these movies and good for them. I'm just unable to see the appeal.
This time around the Bella's are touring when an incident occurs that prevents them from continuing their singing. But if they can win the world competition their school will reinstate the group. Almost everyone is back from the first along with a few newcomers, such as Hailee Steinfeld. She plays a new Bella and daughter of a former Bella. She's a good actress (checkout True Grit) but she isn't given enough to do here besides act childlike in comparison to the rest of the team. There's also enough offensive jokes to go around the group just like the last one. And the jokes do hit sometimes, particularly with John and Gail. Fat Amy also has a few laughs but her jokes fall flat more often than not. It's unfortunate, because her character was pretty funny in small doses in the first film. Here, we get far too exposed to her character (in more than one way) and it hurts the fun of it. The film also dives into a romance with her and Devine's character that really took me out of the movie. I just feel like the film wanted to go in far too many directions to make one cohesive picture. With first time director Elizabeth Banks, that's not a good sign.
Key from Key & Peele makes a glorified cameo, which improves the comedy, but doesn't do much to further the actual film. He plays Kendrick's boss and famous musical producer for Snoop Dogg and has several funny gags. But none of it seemed to matter in the long haul. Once again the film has several contrived parts to an uneven picture. Why did Aubrey need to be in the film? No real reason other than to make the Bellas go through 'boot camp' to find their sound........ what?? The performances were cool but nothing mind-blowing. The film tackles an underground a cappella competition for a near 15-20 minutes when the final performance and competition turn out to be 5 minutes or so. This film isn't for me and I probably wont be checking out the inevitable 3rd film, I just don't understand the appeal. Especially when you have a character like David Cross' goofy and out of place rip off host, not to mention the Green Bay Packers whose jokes fell completely flat. Along with a contrived filled plot and an unfocused story.
+Performances
+Key
-Contrived moments
-Plot confuses itself
-Unnecessary characters and arcs
-Focused too much on some scenes and not the finale
4.6/10