Book Review

Movie Review: Pitch Perfect 2

Last week was a fantastic week in movies about women.  Mad Max: Fury Road was in the number 2 spot for weekend gross.  Hot Pursuit (a buddy cop movie with Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara) was number 4.  The Age of Adeline, Far From the Madding Crowd, and Home were also in the top ten.  The number one spot, though?  That went to Pitch Perfect 2.

A movie about acapella singing women beat out Avengers.  Think about THAT.

I unabashedly love Pitch Perfect and movies about spunky kids coming together and finding the depths of their talents and triumphing over all odds.  I won’t lie, I had some water leaking on my face when Beca busted into “Don’t You Forget About Me” in the finale of the first movie.  So you bet your ASS I was going to see PP2.

It’s everything I wanted.  It’s 3 years after the Barden Belles won the National Acapella Championship, and at a performance for the President’s birthday, there’s a massive wardrobe malfunction and Fat Amy accidently flashes (southern exposure) the entire audience.  As a punishement, the Belles are disbanded, but Beca gets the governing body to agree that IF the Bellas win the world championships, then they will be re-instated.

It’ll be hard, though, because the US never wins.  Everyone else HATES the US.  The team to beat?  Das Sound Machine, from Germany.

The Bellas are Beca (Anna Kendrick), the de facto leader, Chloe (Brittany Snow) who has stalled her graduation for three years because she’s not ready to leave the Bellas, Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), Cynthia Rose (Esther Dean), Stacie (Alexis Knapp), Lily (Hana Mae Lee), Flo (Chrissie Fit), Ashley, Jessica, and newcomer Emily (Hailee Steinfeld).

Beca is dealing with her post-graduation plans, and has landed an internship with a record producer (playing amazingly by Keegan-Michael Key of Key and Peele, who you might recognize as Luther, Obama’s Anger Translator).  It’s a story of trying to figure out how to even begin adulting after college.

More importantly, it’s a story about women’s friendships.  The Bellas are a found family, and they’ve been through a lot together.  Even as they’re preparing to go their separate ways, they still need each other (and end up doing a beautiful 10-part version of “Cups” from the first movie which was just…. augh I need a moment.  Talk amongst yourselves.)

The other part is the importance of legacy and history.  The Bellas have been an institution at Barden College for decades, and Emily’s mom (Katey Segal) was a Bella when she was in college.  Being a Bella will always be true for our heroes, and it had a profound affect on them:  “What I’m gonna miss is you weirdos.”  You all know how much I love a found family narrative, and this is no exception.

Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins screaming in horror in the announcer's booth

There is also the acapella announcers played by John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks.  They’re amazing, and every time Higgins says something that’s sexist, racist, or anything like it, Banks hops in with a “Really? Did you really need to say that?”  There’s some jokes that land badly (including a minute long riff on Thai lady boys, sigh), and I’m not totally sure about Rebel Wilson all the time (but she gets the big romantic subplot, so props for that, movie!). Like, is she in control of the fat jokes or not?  The more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I am with some of the low-hanging fruit humor- the Guatamlan girl gets jokes about being an immigrant and nothing else.  Cynthia Rose mostly talks about being a lesbian, and I think there’s a legitimate conversation to be had about queerbaiting with Chloe and Beca- there’s so much to tease a possible romantic relationship between the two, but the movie never has any intention of going there.  (That said, Anna Kendricks and Brittany Snow have a ridiculous amount of chemistry.)  Not all of the humor is like this, but it’s such low hanging fruit that’ll get a reaction from a majority audience that is not a part of the groups being made fun of, so….  come on movie, you can be better than this. This would be an easy A if it weren’t for the dodgy humor.

But the real reason to see this movie?  THE MUSIC.  The Bellas start with a medley that includes Ke$ha, Pitbull, Miley Cyrus, and America the Beautiful.  There’s the previously mentioned Cups, and Das Sound Machine does a version of Fall Out Boy’s “My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark.” Pentatonix shows up, as do [spoilers]Jason Jones, John Hodgeman, Reggie Watts, Joe Lo Trulio, and a handful of singing Green Bay Packers.  Like the football guys.  Singing.  They’re actually pretty good?  I don’t want to spoil all the gloriousness that is the Bellas’ finale song, but Queen Beyonce is involved.[/spoilers]

Here’s the kicker though.  You know Elizabeth Banks from The Hunger Games movies and maybe from Zack and Miri Make a Porno, but this is her directing debut.  Her directing debut that made more money in it’s opening weekend than the first PP movie made in its entire theatrical run.  This movie is written by, is directed by, and stars women.  Dudes are there to support our heroines’ stories, not the other way around.  (Literally, Beca’s boyfriend is there to drop her off at work and be supportive and cute and not much else.)

So check it, Hollywood.  MOVIES ABOUT AND BY WOMEN MAKE MONEY.  Stop pretending that that’s not a thing.  It’s always been a thing.

Add Your Comment →

  1. I also LOVED this movie. And I also struggled with some of the humor, especially the Fat Amy stuff. It’s like, okay, here’s this woman with ALL. THE. CURVES. And all the sass, totally owning her sexuality…but still, she’s the butt of the butt jokes. And she’s the funny girl because she’s the fat girl. I think Fat Amy needs her own movie, frankly. Wherein she doesn’t get thin, but marries Bumper and has lots of babies and rules the world. Or whatever she wants to do.
    Anyway.
    And Elizabeth Banks, I love you. You saved my life with that Just A Little Heart Attack video. It really was just a little heart attack, but if I hadn’t seen that, it might have been much bigger! https://youtu.be/t7wmPWTnDbE

  2. Meara says:

    I definitely felt like all of the “jokes” involving the Latina Bella (did she even get a name??) were so very unnecessary. Those were awful. But I loved the music and the girl power. And the bits with Anna Kendrick’s character and the German lady cracked me up, as a queer, even if the Cynthia bits were weird (groping the other Bellas in the tent, what??).

  3. marjorie says:

    The first movie was SO Fat-Amy-positive; I felt really betrayed this time. She was the butt (literally) of way too much of the humor this go-round — the “scandal” at the beginning was an endless, extended fat joke. (EW FAT EW FAT VAGINA — uh, what IS a fat vagina?) And then her tentativeness in the romance was tiresome…and again, she was the object of the humor rather than the jokester.

    I too loved Das Sound Machine (DSM! DSM!) and Anna Kendrick is always adorable and Key was so great and HOLY SHIT Clay Matthews of the Green Bay Packers!…but wah, my beloved Fat Amy was ill-served.

    Also: GOD SO MUCH PRODUCT PLACEMENT. I don’t generally get bothered, but it was so egregious.

  4. Crystal says:

    I saw this last week with a friend (my husband absolutely refused to go see it with me, which I didn’t get because when he watched the first one with me he enjoyed it and laughed all the way through it, ugh, BOYS). It was the most enjoyable afternoon at the movies I’ve had in some time. Kendrick and Wilson are always the best, Key was killing me (oh, and by the way, SNOOP), and Kelly and I kept whispering about how we just wanted to adopt Hailee Steinfeld and bake her cookies. I could see where some of the jokes about Fat Amy were somewhat problematic, but I kind of feel like that’s in keeping with her character (“I’ll say this before you even get the chance to”) and I loved the fact that Bumper was the one really doing the pursuing in their relationship. She’s awesome and gorgeous and sexy and he got it, and was at it. As for the music, well, put it this way. I had an iTunes gift card that the hubs and kids had gotten me for Mother’s Day, and I considered downloading the whole soundtrack an entirely legitimate use of it.

  5. Kerry says:

    I cringed several times in the theater watching this movie. The Thai ladyboy bit got audible groans from the audience I saw it with, as did many of the lines from the Guatemalan character (How sad is it that I don’t even know her name? She was such a one dimensional character). It really was a shame that they went for that low hanging fruit…and it seemed mean spirited. The sisterhood and songs bit was as awesome as expected, but in the end – this movie just left me feeling disappointed & longing for what it could have been.

Add Your Comment

Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

↑ Back to Top