Aca-pathetic

Rating: 3/10 (10 October 2012)

Most of the people I saw Pitch Perfect with truly enjoyed it. They laughed and clapped and booed at me when I expressed my disgust. For many, this movie will definitely be enjoyable. Make no mistake, that does not make it any less of an awful movie.
Several factors contribute to my low opinion of Pitch Perfect. The largest of these concerns is the cast of characters. While there are few complaints in the acting department, the characters themselves are among the worst set of "people" committed to screen in recent memory.
"Beca" (is that spelling supposed to be hip or something?) is an arrogant, brooding, selfish brat who spends most of her time sulking on her computer and complaining about being forced to go to COLLEGE and be with PEOPLE (blegh, right?!). This is a perfect setup for character development, right? Wrong. After a half-hearted apology for being a terrible human being before the climax, Beca morphs not into an upstanding social and moral butterfly, but a smug leader of the troop she so recently was kicked off of, and this is the image the audience is left with.
"Jesse" is the most cliché love interest one can imagine. Seriously, girls, if you ever meet a guy this perfect and blameless, marry him. Jesse prances throughout the movie being sweet to everybody, from his unrealistically nerdy roommate to the jerks he sings with. He pursues Beca valiantly for no particular reason and provides the cliché moral criticism Beca so desperately needs late in the movie (but of course he takes her back). While girls might be enthralled by this sentiment, no true development can occur through a character who is so blatantly one-dimensional.
Worst of all are the two commentators for the sing-offs, Gail and John. These two buffoons spew dialogue that is not only shockingly inappropriate for television/radio, they simply aren't funny. While clearly trying to channel Fred Willard's comedic performance from Best in Show, the pair instead come across as amusing as your drunk middle-aged parents at a frat party.
Other character "highlights" include the mind-bogglingly narrow-minded and stubborn team leader, Aubrey. Stacie provides the necessary college-aged sex-addicted tramp character (a character so over-the-top, you're guaranteed to squirm). Bumper (the captain of the boy's singing team) is a character so insanely arrogant and rude that he is not only hard to enjoy watching, he makes you want to kill every jock on the planet. Slowly.
The movie's second fatal flaw is its achingly stupid sense of humor. Yes, boys and girls, Fat Amy is funny. She has several good one liners and lends the movie its only spark of humor-related vitality. However, all else falls flat. The most achingly obvious example is the vomit-laden climax. Seriously, was that girl doing vomit-angels supposed to funny? I guess I just don't get it.
Also, for a PG-13 flick aimed at mostly female tweens, Pitch Perfect is surprisingly offensive. The movie takes heavy jabs at nerds, Asian people, Jewish people, redheads, and probably more that I fail to recall at the moment (not to mention several distasteful jokes like the one about eating another baby in the womb). Seriously, filmmakers, you aren't Sacha Baron Cohen, and you don't have the same audience.
Finally, the movie follows the most cliché (I like this word, don't I?) storyline imaginable. Girl has trouble in college. Girl meets boy who befriends her. Girl joins team of has-beens. Girl pushes away boy away because of her past and her daddy issues. Girl forced off team. Girl "learns lesson" and wins boy back and helps team of has-beens win championship. Yay, ingenuity!
Ultimately, the comedic sparks from the humorous character Fat Amy can not save Pitch Perfect. I'll be honest, this movie completely lost at the vomit scene(even Miss March was more tasteful than that!) I was quite aca-thankful when the movie came to its (very abrupt) ending.