Pitches Be Crazy

Year: 2017

Director: Trish Sie

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

The Pitch Perfect franchise has a pretty personal connection to me. The first one arrived when I was a freshman in college, the same as the characters in the movie. And just like how I grew up at roughly the same rate as Harry Potter, I grew along with the Garden Bellas, through college and into the vaguely defined post-graduation future. These movies have followed every beat of my life since 2012, arriving every couple of years to remind me of the pop songs I tried to ignore while the years were passing. So I knew I had to check out the third and ostensibly final entry in the franchise, despite the fact that I borderline hated the previous entry. Let's see how it went!

Ah, I see they're traveling to Europe! That's always a good sign, right?

Pitch Perfect 3 cuts the fat of the franchise's cast, slicing off pretty much every male character and even one of the Barden Bellas (sorry Stacie, I don't know if you were actually pregnant or just busy, but at least you get a scene over FaceTime - Skylar Astin is stuck prepping for the Trolls TV series and he got squat) as the now graduated Bellas return for one final adventure. They are all struggling with finding their place in the larger world, so they're throwing their all into a USO tour, hoping that they can get noticed over the other bands and picked to open for a cameo-ing DJ Khaled on his big televised show at the end of the week.

The plot is mostly just DJ Khaled straining for laughs, shooting his bizarre personality in every direction possible, but let's break it down a little more. Beca (Anna Kendrick) just quit her job as a corporate music producer, but when she meets Khaled's manager Theo (Guy Burnet) she realizes she might not have lost her interest in that lifestyle. Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) encounters her mafioso father (John Lithgow sporting a terrible Aussie accent), who tries to charm her back into his life for potentially nefarious reasons. And, um... Chloe (Brittany Snow) flirts with hot Army dude Chicago (Matt Lanter). I guess there's other girls too (Anna Camp, Ester Dean, Hailee Steinfeld, Hana Mae Lee, and poor Chrissie Fit - who was saddled with the worst character in PP2 and as a reward for her patience gets absolutely nothing to do here).

The biggest issue is that the bands they're competing with use actual instruments and claim not to perform covers (that's a big part of the way they judge the Bellas, but if there's a original song in the lineup we eventually see, I'll eat my f**king hat).

Nice try, Josie and the Pussycats.

Now, it's not entirely Pitch Perfect 3's fault that its songs are boring as hell. Sia is very popular at the moment (plus, she has a tie with the first film's use of the song "Titanium"), so it makes sense that they chose to perform "Cheap Thrills." Unfortunately, that song has the tempo of a funeral dirge and does not befit itself to a high energy comedy sequel. It feels like the movie has been thrust into slow motion, and the other songs don't do much to bring the pace back up. 

Among the artists selected to be brought to tedious life without instrumentation are Flo Rida, George Michael, some unbearably hip songbird called Daya, and oh... that's about it. It just all seems hopelessly random and listless, and only Britney Spears' "Toxic" does anything to pique the interest (they clearly know this because the performance is repeated twice, in the opening and about an hour later). There's not even any mash-upping happening here, which is the only trick the Bellas have in their bag! The only thing that got me through the second movie was the a cappella performances, and this film lacks a major lifeline.

At least they didn't force us to listen to any more Hailee Steinfeld-penned original song catastrophes.

I've never liked the recurring Pitch Perfect joke of slapping the prefix "aca-" in front of random words. It's not really a joke, and it's one of the writers' favorite things to shove in there when a scene is flagging. Of course, this entry is more than ready to double down on all the gags people purportedly respond to from the franchise, so I don't get off easy in the comedy department either.

Luckily, the cast is still charming (and quite comfortable in their characters' skins at this point) and manages to deliver some fun, punchy material from the midst of this messy, scattered plot. They're clearly having fun together, and that does spice up some of the potentially leaden moments. But there's no doubting that the whole affair is being held together with bubblegum and twine.

Just like the Ghostbusters remake before it, the end credits reveal just how many scenes were cut to shreds, shoving in outtakes left and right that are very clearly entire scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor. And the film is so uninvested in actual character growth, some of these scenes actually provide vital exposition that should have actually been doled out to us 80 minutes before.

I will say this: Pitch Perfect 3 does know how preposterous it is, and it does lean in with some semi-charming meta jokes and an actually enjoyable sense of total reckless abandon. This is best exemplified in this film's Riff-Off, in which people who clearly have no right knowing how a cappella works conspicuously burst into song, to the chagrin of the Bellas. That doesn't make it a good film, but sometimes it's a sort of enjoyable one.

Better than Part 2? That's a low bar to clear, but I honestly don't think it can claim that title. These sequels have indulged in the worst impulses of the original, which was an incredible comedy in spite of certain flaws. Now these films have buffed out everything but the flaws, and this is a well I hope they don't return to until they've had a long time to think about what they did.

TL;DR: Pitch Perfect 3 is a scattered, tedious sequel that doesn't do right by its characters, its story, or - most importantly - its music.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 1072

Reviews In This Series

Pitch Perfect 2 (Banks, 2015)

Pitch Perfect 3 (Sie, 2017)

The Pitch Is Back

Year: 2015

Director: Elizabeth Banks

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld

Run Time: 1 hour 55 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Pitch Perfect is an important franchise for me. When the original film opened in 2012, I was a dewy-eyed and apple-cheeked freshman out in the world for the first time. The lively and unexpectedly fresh college comedy was the perfect match for my budding lust for life. Now, the years have passed by and as I face graduation and the rest of my life, Pitch Perfect 2 has arrived to once again mirror my situation.

Just like me, it's a little more tired and a little less sure of itself, but equally eager to please.

And in a slightly more precarious position.

Pitch Perfect picks up three years after the original, with the newcomer Beca (Anna Kendrick) having risen to the lucrative position of leader of the Barden Bellas, the Barden Academy's all-female a cappella team. After Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) suffers an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction at a presidential gala, the Bellas are suspended from competition because screenwriter Kay Cannon would rather stick her hand in a meat grinder than see a fat woman naked.

Anyway, the one shot the Bellas have to regain their official standing is to win the World's A Capella Competition, to which they have a free pass, being the reigning U.S. champions. However, to accomplish this and beat their German Rivals, Das Sound Machine, they must struggle to rediscover their identity and find their sound, a conflict which also defines Beca's increasingly stressful workload at her secret internship at a music studio. As she suffers from the strain of splitting her focus, the newcomer/legacy student/songwriter/character we introduce so we can have another sequel once we lose Anna Kendrick, Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), feels neglected. Boo hoo.

At least she gets lines. That's more than you can say for about half of the filler Bellas this time around.

Pitch Perfect 2 is a very complicated movie to like. While it was never going to be able to capture the lightning in a bottle of the first film, it does have moments that at least touch the glass. But these scenes, no matter how relatively frequent they may be, can't satisfactorily break through the haze of the film's stupefyingly distasteful humor.

The script's disdain for overweight women was admittedly present in the original film, albeit handled with more grace, but several series mainstays are turned into shrieking harpies of bigotry and new character Flo (Chrissie Fit) is seemingly culled from a first draft of a Song of the South-era Disney film about illegal immigrants. It's bad enough that the "Mexican but Actually Guatemalan" character is treated the way she is by others, but when her every line consists of references to third world diseases, wayward kidnappings, and drug barons, perhaps it's time to rethink your "female empowerment and inclusion" credo.

Add in the wildly overused commentator John (John Michael Higgins) whose "cantankerous old man with 50's values" character is a dead horse that is not only beaten but encased in concrete and sunk into the Hudson, as well as Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean), a once proud lesbian character who has been reduced to a predatory womanizer that sexually harasses her friends because she's so butch and can't control her lady bits, and you have a film that's immensely unpleasant to watch.

About as unpleasant as pillow fights. Have you ever actually had one? Overrated.

Pitch Perfect 2 is essentially an advanced exercise in character assassination, but several manage to survive the carnage. Anna Kendrick returns, as strong as ever, brimming with unforced charm, and her chemistry with the equally committed Rebel Wilson is the strongest returning element. Newcomers David Cross (as a deeply weird a cappella superfan) and Keegan-Michael Key (as Beca's unspeakably self-assured boss) also survive the fray with hardly a scratch, breathing life into the waterlogged lungs of whatever scenes they appear in.

And honestly, some moments are just damn funny, no two ways about it. From the revolving door of guest stars you never knew you wanted to the gags that subvert chick flick clichés with unparalleled ease, there's a lot to really enjoy in Pitch Perfect 2. 

Unfortunately, the music really isn't as strong this time around, though the song choices are intermittently exciting. The Riff-Off 2.0 is exceptionally disorganized, and a mid-film medley is a glaring mistake, though there are a decent amount of well-heeled production numbers, especially from the slickly precise Das Sound Machine. 

Probably the most flawed performances occur during the Bellas' "Find Our Voice" period. They're supposed to be terrible for narrative purposes, but the producers are keenly aware that they still need to sell singles. As a result, many of these tracks occupy a strange middle space between soullessly generic and halfheartedly creative.

Kind of like Ariana Grande.

And the addition of an original song co-penned by Sia and Sam Smith (with all of the droning, syrupy lyricism that that phrase implies) plants the film securely in an insipid post-Glee territory for far longer than it needs to.

But in spite of its impressive slate of flaws, Pitch Perfect 2 is still lovable.

Kind of like Ariana Grande.

It's a mostly endearing comedy with a hard-won moral about finding yourself post-graduation, and it ain't gonna kill ya. 

TL;DR: Pitch Perfect 2 occupies a dangerous zone in terms of offensive humor and leaden song choices, but is genuinely fun a good portion of the time.
Rating: 6/10
Should I Spend Money On This? If you were a fan of the original, absolutely.
Word Count: 940
Reviews In This Series
Pitch Perfect 2 (Banks, 2015)
Pitch Perfect 3 (Sie, 2017)

Bella Donna

Year: 2008

Director: Nelson McCormick

Cast: Brittany Snow, Idris Elba, Johnathon Schaech

Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Not that any of us should be surprised, especially considering that it's a remake, but Prom Night has absolutely nothing to do with its titanically offbeat predecessors. It is only nominally a remake, so much so that not a single one of the franchise staples - Hamilton High, Brock Simpson, a score by Paul Zaza, secretly being Canadian - are present.

Literally the only thing it has in common with the rest of the movies is that it takes place at a prom, which isn't even true of all four (remember Prom Night IV? We just talked about it).

Enough complaining. Remake culture is what it is and nothing I can do will be able to change that. And some remakes were even *gulp* kinda good. Although I can knock one out of my good esteem right now.

When Cassidy and I sat down to watch the entire Prom Night series, we both vaguely remembered the remake as being a tolerable but forgettable affair. Not a stain on the underwear of humanity, but actually a halfway decent horror flick despite its PG-13 lack of gore.

And the ferociously bland supporting cast.

We were dead wrong.

Prom Night opens with Donna Keppel (Brittany Snow) coming home to find her father and little brother with their throats slashed by a maniac teacher (Johnathon Schaech) who has developed an obsession with her. She hears a noise in the other room and hides under the bed as the killer throws her mother on the floor, demanding to be told where she is. Her mother refuses to say and, glimpsing her daughter cowering feet away from her, stands her ground, only to be brutally murdered. Right in front of her daughter.

In five minutes Prom Night has already covered darker subject matter than the average war movie, and it is exceedingly unpleasant.

Unpleasant.

Get used to that. You're going to be hearing that word a lot tonight.

It's not exactly rainbows and puppy dogs down here.

I don't know why both Cassidy's and my memories were so cloudy on this account. Maybe we weren't old enough to understand the full impact of what we were seeing. Maybe our thought processes regarding movie watching have grown more sophisticated after our first year of college (Psych 101 does wonders, I'm telling you). But this scene, and every one that proceeded, was unmistakably vile and.... unpleasant.

Slashers very frequently depict scenes of pain and death (obviously), but never has a slasher movie been so mean-spirited or told a story that was just so very sad. It's not that the characters are developed more than the average movie or even that the deaths are more visceral. And it's definitely not intentional. But every single death in the movie is like a punch in the gut - one more reason to consider turning the film off.

It's not fun, like the cheesy gore pictures of the 80's. It's not a fable of evil the likes of Halloween. It's not even trying to glean some sort of feeling from the painful (and bloodless) deaths. It is inhuman and mechanical, without conscience, trying to replicate the tropes of the slasher genre and obeying the letter of the law without ever once comprehending the spirit.

Honestly and without exaggeration, if there is a single slasher movie that could be constructed by the forces of pure evil, it would be this one. Not one moment of this film is redeeming, from the wealth of terrible jump scares (the Abominable Mirror Scare is used at least three times along with a litany of other genre standards, notably the Backing Into a Friend and It's All a Dream) to the utterly stupid even for a horror movie slate of Meat to the completely inappropriate and grotesque main villain to the truly staggering number of characters sent to the killer's domain for no reason but to be gutted.

One by one we watch everything Donna loves get taken away from her.

Her family? Tortured and gored.

Her friends? Throats slit and bodies shoved into closets.

Her prom night? An utter nightmare of torment, blood, and latent pedophilia.

Her boyfriend? Stabbed in the throat as he lies in bed with her.

This movie is a conveyor belt of tortures for this poor girl who is sweetness embodied. And who could expect anything less from Brittany Snow?

I don't know why anybody would expect that we should want to see this film, and I can't even adequately explain to myself what magical quality this film possesses that makes it so utterly immoral and venomous, but I know bad juju when I see it and this movie needs a cleansing. And fast.

I don't care about recapping the rest of the plot, because I don't want anybody else to ever have to watch this movie ever again.

Killer: Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech)

Final Girl: Donna Keppel (Brittany Snow)

Best Kill: N/A. If you'd read even a single word in the preceding article, you'd know why.

Scariest Moment: Donna has to watch her mother die defending her, unable to help or cry out.

Sign of the Times: "I'll go request some JT." Also the size of the digital camera the girls bring to prom.

Weirdest Moment: The entire thing took place in Portland. Poor Cassidy.

Champion Dialogue: "If he were any dumber, I'd have to water him."

Body Count: 14, the highest in the series.

1. Mr. Keppel is stabbed to death.
2. Joey Keppel is stabbed to death.
3. Mrs. Keppel is stabbed to death.
4. Inmate has his throat slit.
5. Maria is stabbed to death.
6. Claire is stabbed to death.
7. Michael is stabbed to death.
8. Simms is strangled.
9. Howard's throat is slit.
10. Lisa's throat is slit
11. Detective Nash's throat is slit
12. Bobby's throat is slit.
13. Officer Hicks is stabbed to death.
14. Richard Fenton is shot seven times in the chest. 

TL;DR: Prom Night is a vile and grotesque creature, possessing a nearly unexplainable but overwhelming quality of being the most immoral and vile film I have ever seen.

Rating: 1/10

Word Count: 1028

Reviews In This Series

Prom Night (Lynch, 1980)

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (Pittman, 1987)

Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (Oliver/Simpson, 1990)

Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil (Borris, 1992)

Prom Night (McCormick, 2008)