Pitch Perfect 2 **** (2015, Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Elizabeth Banks) – Movie Review

In this welcome, aca-magical sequel to the 2012 hit, the all-girl Barden Bellas a cappella group are humiliated at a performance before the US President at Lincoln Center.

Banned from collegiate a cappella, it’s all over for them, that is until they get the idea of going to Copenhagen to try to win an international competition no American group has ever won. They’d have to beat the mighty German opposition, along with some personal demons, though.

Anna Kendrick‘s Beca moonlights as an intern at a recording company run Keegan-Michael Key (and gets to sing a Christmas number with Snoop Dogg), while Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) tries to make her mind up if she’s dating Bumper (Adam DeVine) and new girl Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) moves in on the act.

I laughed a lot, and tapped my toe a lot. Risqué jokes help to add spice to some of the sugar. Both the routines and the comedy certainly exactly hit the right notes. A slight sag in the middle apart, with David Cross giving an off-key performance as Rip-Off Host, it’s virtually pitch perfect. The performing and staging is lovely. It all definitely sings.

It’s edited to the slickest show imaginable in a long but never feeling long 115 minutes. Elizabeth Banks directs ultra-briskly and uber-confidently, in her feature debut, and on screen she and also John Michael Higgins re-create their funny roles as the a cappella contest commentators.

Kendrick’s iron-willed determination holds the movie’s centre. Looking like Divine, Wilson gets all the funniest lines and delivers her laughs big time. It’s a one-note act, but it’s a great one, and she’s so much funnier than Melissa McCarthy it hurts. Birgitte Hjort Sørensen and Flula Borg also do well as the arrogant, super-talented German team leaders.

Kendrick, aged 30 on August 9 2015, seems to be on a mission to bring back the movie musical, what with this, Into the Woods and The Last Five Years all out the last few months.

By the way, a cappella is Italian for ‘in the manner of the church’, ‘in the manner of the chapel’ or ‘in chapel style”, anyway, as you know, it’s choral singing without instrumental accompaniment.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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