Film Review: Pitch Perfect

Director: Jason Moore

All girl comedies are one of the latest things in vogue in Hollywood at the moment, Bridesmaids clearly paved the way as it went onto an impressive performance at the box office as well as praise from critics. There has also been the St Trinian films which also seemed to have been popular. Pitch Perfect comes along as the next in line which follows the efforts of an all girl acapella group at Barden University where there is an unusually high amount of groups all fighting for top honours in local competitions.

Beca (Anna Kendrick) is reluctant to go to college but agrees to for her fathers sake as he wants her to get an education. She is more interested in trying to become a DJ than learning about Philosophy but agrees to continue in college and join a campus group to make friends because her father says he will pay for a trip to LA for her. She decides to join the Bellas after one of the girls hears her sing in the shower and the group of newbies plan to beat their big rivals The Treblemakers whilst Beca is pursued by Jesse (Skylar Astin) who is in the rival group.

The Barden Bellas

Anna Kendrick is an actress I like after her performance in Up in the Air and she is decent here although not entirely convincing as a slightly reclusive indie girl because she is too genuinely nice for the role at times. She becomes more comfortable as the film progresses whilst Rebel Wilson is on usual form as Fat Amy, a role not far removed from her performance in Bridesmaids which was one of the reasons I detested that movie. She is slightly toned down here but it is still increasingly irritating whilst most of the other characters are incidental to the plot itself except maybe for Aubrey the stubborn band leader.

By far the funniest performance was from Elizabeth Banks as one of the commentators for the acapella competitions, she has many of the best lines and the role was like something straight out of Dodgeball with the quirky commentators. Skylar Astin is average as the love interest despite looking hugely like Dane Cook. Overall the film doesn't have enough genuinely funny moments and leaves you with more moments where you hear the joke but really don't find it funny.

2/4 a few laughs and a lot of singing