Great music, so-so story

Rating: 6/10 (14 November 2014)

First off, I'll admit to not being a fan of GLEE and I don't really get the fascination with acappella. It's just singing without instruments, and the most fun I can see people having with it is as a novelty. Still, I decided to check out PITCH PERFECT and see what all the fuss was about. My general impression was that the musical numbers were pretty good across the board, and quite creative. Everything else just kind of drags it down a bit. The basic plot is that an all-girl college acappella group is trying to redeem themselves after an embarrassing loss at the last year's finals. It also served as an opportunity for a diverse group of girls, who normally wouldn't be together, to get to know each other and become friends. The cast isn't really filled with a lot of recognizable faces, but they all give decent performances. Still, the lack of character depth is apparent and none of them really approach anything past caricatures. Everyone has a couple of characteristics or quirks that get mined for laughs throughout the whole movie, and it did get old after a while. Plot-wise, no new ground was broken either. Everything happens exactly how you expect it to, complete with a last-minute crisis that gets resolved a little too quickly and cleanly. And really, outside of that there really isn't any conflict or reason to care about any of the characters. Still, the musical numbers are quite impressive, and the only reason I'm rating this as high as I am. While the core group, the Barden Bellas, stick to the same songs for the most of the movie, only changing up their act in the final part of the movie, everyone else varies their material and gives it a nice touch. There are a wide variety of songs chosen, and they're performed in visually interesting ways and have good choreography as well. The contemporary soundtrack was also quite good too. Overall, I thought the movie was OK, but nothing to rave about. Despite the great soundtrack and musical performances, the plot is rote and the characters all one-note. It isn't horrible by any stretch, but the only reason to see it is for the music or if you're a GLEE fan.