Just Disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (19 February 2018)

This is the second movie I have attended in 2018, and, unfortunately, I am 0 for 2 on the year.
The movie was just, well how to I sum this up in one word, pointless is a good one. Don't get me wrong, the first movie in the trilogy was a great film. Something that hadn't been attempted, well attempted and succeeded before in my opinion. An entire movie about acapella. But, as we have seen, there is only so much you can do with that theme. The second movie was okay, nowhere near the level of the first. And the third seemed like a pure cash grab. The jokes fell flat for most of the movie, only making me laugh a couple times. For a comedy movie, it wasn't very funny. We lost most of the original cast from the first movie, including the entire male group the Trebelmakers, including the talents of Skylar Astin (Jesse) and Ben Platt (Benji). There were a big part of Beca's character arc in the first and second movie, and they weren't there for the final movie, or at least I hope this was the final move.
The usual redeeming quality about these movies is the music, and I was the most disappointed about that aspect in this. The songs they chose to sing were boring. There were no uptempo songs, no mash-ups (which the first movie was famous for), the riff off just didn't work. It was just bad really. There was only one good song in my mind, so I would suggest buying "Freedom! '90" only from iTunes if you are at all interested in the album and don't waste the rest of your money.
The one good song leads directly to one of the only positive things about this movie, and that is Anna Kendrick's performance as Beca. For the bad movie that this was, it finished out Beca's character arc very well. Due to the non-casting of her boyfriend in the first two films, they broke them up in the movie, but they didn't get her back together with another guy in the film, which was the right move. Beca's singing was on point, which I think is a real underrated aspect in Anna Kendrick's arsenal as an actor I might add. And they finished with her being in a perfect place for the character, so well done on that.
The movie I would compare this to is Star Wars: The Last Jedi if you can believe it, although a real difference in quality level. A very good main character arc, but very distracting with the rest of the plot line around it. If you take out all the scenes without Anna Kendrick in it, this would have been a much better movie.
My suggestion to anyone who hasn't seen this in theaters is don't unless you have a huge crush on this trilogy. I honestly, wouldn't even suggest renting it. I would wait until it comes out on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, whatever your preferred platform really. And as for buying the movie, I would only do it if you need it for your collection to finish out all three, and even then I would look for a bundle pack with the other two. This movie wasn't the worst in the year of 2017, but it certainly wasn't great.