Keeps all the charm and fun of the original

Rating: 9/10 (9 January 2016)

'Pitch Perfect' was a bit of a sleeper hit. I hadn't even heard of it when two people I knew told me it was their new favourite film in quick succession. It didn't sound like my kind of a movie but I thought I'd give it a go nevertheless. To my surprise I found myself really enjoying it and so was quite pleased to see they were making a sequel. Sequels are notorious for losing the magic of the original, particularly comedies which seem on a hiding to nothing most of the time. However, I found myself enjoying this one just as much as I had the original.
Nearly the full cast had returned (always a good sign) and there were a few adjustments to the amount of lines particular characters were getting, determined by how popular they were in the first. The character 'Fat Amy' who was a real fan-favourite in the original had a very noticeable increase in lines. Elizabeth Banks took over the directing role for this one, in her first full feature film at the helm. I think she did a pretty good job for the most part. One thing I'd suggest she got wrong though was the final performance by the 'Bellas'. It simply wasn't good enough to justify winning the World Championship. In fact one of the few other performances we actually see in full by 'Das Sound Machine' was noticeably better. We were supposed to be swayed by the crowd simply cheering louder for the 'Bellas' but that wasn't fooling any intelligent audience member.
This was one of the only real flaws though. Most of the jokes landed very well, the singing performances were very entertaining and the choice of songs throughout was spot-on and really got the audience into a jovial mood. There's also a charm about these movies that can be rare to come across these days. I really like this series and eagerly look forward to the third installment.