Offensive, Sloppy and Heartless

Rating: 2/10 (18 April 2013)

Pitch Perfect is certainly a wildly popular movie, that came highly recommended by countless friends and family. I had no idea what it was about beyond 'singing,' so I fired up the DVD player at Château Pulpitel, and eagerly awaited the many laughs I was assured this film would provide.
Now they never really came. This film is as best I can gather, 'Glee: The Movie' with the basic plot elements of your 'Bring it On' style films. So if you love any of that stuff, stop reading now and go watch it. You'll love this film so you needn't bother about my opinions.
Okay, it's just us now, right?
Where this movie falls apart is in two aspects; firstly its complete disinterest in logic pertaining even to its own universe, and more worryingly, it has an offensive attitude that is nothing short of racist, sexist and more suited to your standard right wing attitude in its portrayal of non-Caucasians, Jewish people, people with eating disorders and women in general.
This movie doesn't care about what happened before, or why something is happening now. It's one big Deus ex machina from beginning to end. Why did Ben Platt's' character Benji, turn up as stage manager at the regional sing off event? Everyone else had to drive on the bus to get there. Where was he? Why was he a stage manager at another university, when he is a freshman amateur magician? Why was it that the best way to get rid of Adam Devine's' character Bumper was to have a hastily created scene with him immediately leaving to work with John Mayer- negating any interest in his relationship with Rebel Wilsons' appallingly offensive and unfunny Big Amy character? Why does no one EVER study? THey don't even carry books, or pens, or seem to talk about their subjects! This movie shows us countless avenues of interest and then never refer to them again. It sets up characters and dumps them never to be seen again. We are shown four acapella groups, one of which NEVER does anything, at all! Why bother with all of these settings if you never refer to it again? Because no one cared that much, would be my guess.
More shamefully however, is the constant prejudicial attitudes displayed in this film. This movie attempts to be funny by being daring, and outrageous. So we get not one, but two Asian characters who are simply awful stereotypes. One is a racist angry dorm- mate with the main protagonist, who manages to be an unlikeable bitchy Asian stereotype. The other is a 'crazy Asian' stereotype, who is a pyromaniac who rolls around in vomit. You know, because Asians can't be complex and meaningful. They are either bitchy nerds of perverts. We aren't allowed to hear non-white characters speak too much either- our token black character gets around 4 lines (you can't count the singing, because its all clearly auto tuned and added in post) but gets to be a problem gambling lesbian. But there's no motivation given, no reasoning. And after the moment of confession, NO ONE CARES. Maybe it's because she is black? The script writers were right to think that you can do great joke about racist stereotypes, but they missed the concept that you make fun of the behaviour and attitudes of racism, and expose the ridiculousness of it. What they do here is reinforce stereotypes, which should not be amusing for empathetic, caring members of the human race. But we plough deeper into this morass, with obesity, bulimia and deafness copping a serve. I strongly feel that no subject is off limits for humour, but you need to be funny. Making fun of Deaf Jews, Lesbians and Asians is not the same as being funny.
I found this to be a fairly heartless film, where morality and heart are irrelevances, and not one that I could recommend to others. This is not what comedy should be, if we're a truly civilised people.