A crowd pleaser that makes its clichés work and stays consistently funny

Rating: 9/10 (22 April 2015)

Just from the premise of "Pitch Perfect" you can probably predict what the storyline will be like. What you won't see coming is how cleverly written, funny and well performed the film is. I have a theory that for every genre, for every story that's been done time and time again, for every cliché there has to be a few instances where all the pieces fall together so well that you won't mind that you will be able to tell where everything is going. As evidence to back up my theory, I present to you this film.
Beca (Anna Kendricks) dreams of making it big in the music industry and is reluctantly attending college as per her father's demands. In an effort to make the year more bearable she joins an all-female a cappella group (the members include Anna Camp, Brittany Snow, Rebel Wilson, Ester Dean, Alexis Knapp, Hana Mae Lee, Kelly Alice Jakle, Wanetah Walmsley and Shelley Regner). This rag-tag group is disorganized and can barely get through a single song... You might call them underdogs. With a bit of practice and bonding though, the Barden Bellas might stand a chance of beating their rivals and winning the national competition.
I had heard good things about the picture prior to going to see it, but this musical comedy caught me totally off-guard. The a cappella musical pieces are well sung, original and (when dance is involved) well choreographed. I thought the bits where everyone sings were well integrated into the story too. The writing is very smart, particularly when it comes to the jokes. We have everything from witty plays on words to inappropriate surprise humor with a bit of gross-out thrown in as well and even some a cappella puns. I found the soundtrack to be particularly enjoyable, which should be a given considering it's a musical, but it deserves special mention nonetheless. This is a film that will have a lot of re-watch value because you're going to want to memorize and sing along with the characters at home and with your friends. The numbers are catchy and are truly original because they're not just covers of popular songs done without instruments, they're often remixed or mashed-up In clever ways and often, their inclusion comes as a laugh-out-loud punchline.
I found the film to be consistently funny because it knows how ridiculous the premise is. A cappella competitions taken as seriously as college football? It's ludicrous and everyone here knows it. Instead of rolling your eyes as you would in something like "Yu-Gi-Oh! The movie" though, you embrace the characters with open arms, you sing along with them and you get excited to see the film play out the way it's going to because in this case that's the way you WANT it to play out. Not all of the jokes work but the performances alone make it worth seeing. You'll have a great time and more than a few laughs with it. (Theatrical version on the big screen, November 20, 2012)