Poppin' Off- Pitch Perfect 2

I haven't done one of these in a while, so what better way to jump back in then to review a movie that I had seriously hoped to love?

Did you catch that? I said hoped, but that doesn't mean that I completely hated the movie. I still had all the feels for it, but there were a lot of things that I felt fell flat with this sequel. So, at this point in the post let me just say.....this will contain spoilers. If you have yet to watch Pitch Perfect 2 and plan to, and you don't want to know what happens before you see it, then I suggest you stop reading now and come back once you've experienced the movie. There, now that that's out of the way, let's get reviewing.

We find our Bellas on a victory tour, having won three Collegiate championships. They look like singing colorguard girls, all sparkles and props, while they're serenading the President and the First Lady at the Kennedy Center. Then all of the sudden, Fat Amy comes in like a wrecking ball, flashes her vajayjay to the President, et all, and the Bellas are off their tour, lost the privilege of auditioning new members and are possibly off the a capella scene for good until the Worlds come into play. If they can win the Worlds, they can win back the right to compete at the collegiate level again, and hold auditions again.

The Worlds bring in an interesting dynamic because there is the potential for all these great groups from around the world to be seen. Of course, the team to beat is the German team, Das Sound Machine, who happen to be the team that the Bellas victory tour is handed off to. They are everything you'd expect a stereotypical German anything to be: sleek, stylish, strong....almost like a Volkswagen. So its only fitting that the Bellas first meet their rivals at an auto show. While the rivalry was a good one (And that German team was amazing), the focus on the Bellas and Das Sound Machine left no room for anyone else talent-wise. The Treblemakers were terribly underused in this movie. Skylar Astin has an amazing voice, and you only got to hear it like twice.

The movie had a lot of things going on, but at the same time it felt like there were a lot of things that should have been going on that weren't. Beca gets an internship at a recording studio, signaling that shes's thinking about her life after college. That was interesting, and the song she did with Snoop Dogg will probably be on a lot of Christmas playlists this year (I know it will be on mine). But at the same time, it seemed like it detracted from the movie as a whole, if that makes sense. And then you have Chloe, who purposely failed a class three times so she could stay a senior to keep being a Bella because she was scared of life after the Bellas. I think their strife was supposed to show how the Bellas as a whole had all lost their way (remember how I said they looked like singing colorguard members, all props and shimmery outfits), and that's what the movie was really about. Them coming back together. But there was just so many fragments of stories that it was just kinda messy.

Like I mentioned above, The Treblemakers should have been used a lot more. And Jesse and Beca should have been used a lot more as well. Their relationship was what everyone was rooting for in the last movie, and in this one, they're barely together. And when they are, its like watching a brother and sister, not boyfriend and girlfriend. One might argue that its just a time thing, in case you missed all the references to the fact that three years has spanned since we last saw our Bellas, so maybe they're in that auto pilot relationship mode. But I'm more inclined to think that their romance was toned down because of the real life romance between Anna Camp (who plays Aubrey) and Skylar Astin. And if that's the case, shame on the writers! Beca and Jesse were the cutest in the first movie.

And for the whole legacy story line involving new girl Emily, that sucked. I get that they needed a new singer, but legacies are nothing original. And having all the old Bellas sing at the Worlds was disappointing, I would have much rather have seen the Treblemakers back them up. Also, why did Pentatonix (they played the Canadian team) and the Filharmonics (the "ladyboys" from the Philippines, as the announcer called them) only get like, two seconds of screen time? I was looking forward to seeing them in the movie, and they barely got any play.

The Filharmonics- Flashlight (Jessie J/Barden Bellas)

For all my bitching though, I did still like the movie. The riff off was fun, there's still all the humor from the first one that is silly (and sometimes inappropriate) and I had to go buy the soundtrack immediately so I can listen to it over and over like the first one :)

Have you seen Pitch Perfect 2 yet? What are your thoughts on it?