Anna Kendrick Is My New Crush

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2013)

"Pitch Perfect" may not be the kind of movie that will change anyone's life, but it did push me a little bit further into falling in love with Anna Kendrick.
She plays a bit of a loner who gets involved in her college's acapella group (the members put "aca" in front of all their adjectives, like "acamazing" and "acaxcuseme?") and has to fight the group's uptight leader to freshen up their act in the hopes of winning a big annual tournament. The screenplay is completely by the numbers, and you can call out the film's plot developments three scenes before they happen. But if it's lazy in the categories of character development and dramatic tension, it does have a knack for one-liners, and the jokes come fast and furious, keeping things moving along nicely. Kendrick is an absolutely winning and adorable presence, and the film ably pokes fun at acapella groups while paying tribute to them at the same time. It does for acapella what "Miss Congeniality" did for beauty pageants.
Grade: A-