"Fat Amy: Even though some of you are pretty thin, you all have fat hearts, and that's what matters."

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 2014)

Though it suggests itself as "Glee: The Movie", "Pitch Perfect" is, pleasingly, something closer to "Mean Girls: The Musical". The plot, with miscellaneous educational misfits a-singing' their troubles away, is straight out of "Glee", but it's interesting how the girls, especially Becca (Anna Kendrick) remixes and adds flavors to two songs or more. It has "Mean Girls" catty wit and shrewdly observed characters, but with some originality and freshness to the jokes it offers. It's certainly among the best teen movies to come along in a while.
The music side is also very engaging and interesting, especially coming from the acapella groups. The arrangements are pretty slick and catchy (for the most part) and it doesn't come off as dweeby. It's still plenty of fun, bopping along nicely and building to the big finale, spiced up by Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins as competition commentators à la DodgeBall.
It truly is one of the best ensemble comedies I've seen in a while. Becca (Anna Kendrick) hits just the right amount of cuteness and personality. But the spotlight is not purely hers. Jessie (Skylar Astin), Anna's love interest is much more interesting than the standard talking six-pack. Anna Camp and Brittany Snow are stomping Valley-ish as the heads of the group. And Rebel Wilson's Fat Amy — she calls herself that so bitches won't do it to her behind her back — steals scenes shamelessly.
There's a few scenes here and there that I wish they either cut or they expanded on, but it so rarely happens, so I'm hardly complaining. As long as you have some strong characters with a good story, you can have some very goofy scenes alongside a few scenes of character interaction that is pretty good, you have a strong movie. It's charming, fun, and worth a few re-watches. It's got some funny and good writing, which makes it odd and funny at the same time.