New Release: Pitch Perfect

Perhaps it's my undying love for Anna Kendrick. Perhaps it's the fact that I still (ashamedly) watch Glee. Whatever the reason, Pitch Perfect looked like a couple of hours of pure fun. Thank goodness it was.

When Beca (Anna Kendrick), an aspiring DJ, starts college, she reluctantly joins the all-girl a capella group on campus to appease her demanding father. Unfortunately, the group is at the bottom of the competition barrel after leader Aubrey (Anna Camp) vomited all over the audience at nationals the previous year. Aubrey is insistant that the only way to get back to nationals is to continue with their "traditional" (i.e. stale) routine, but a defiant Beca has bigger ideas. Not only do the girls have to get back in the game, but they must also compete with the insanely popular all-male group on campus, whose newcomer Jesse (Skylar Astin) is a love interest for Beca.

The music alone wasn't the draw for the film, because I'm not one to watch any of the endless singing competitions polluting television today. But when the cast actually seems to be having fun with what they're doing, it really shows, and for that alone Pitch Perfect is worth a watch.

Yes, the film is painfully predictable (a point our heroine brings up about all movies). Of course we all know from the beginning that Beca will come around to wanting to stay in college and not alienate herself from everyone, especially Jesse, while Aubrey will eventually chill out and accept some of Beca's changes to the group so they can wow at nationals. That being said, and sort of spoiled, it doesn't really matter. Though you can see every plot turn coming a mile away, it's the energy the cast brings that makes the journey worth it.

I'm pretty sure Kendrick can do no wrong (Twilight excluded). Though Beca was a pretty stock character, Kendrick mad me forget the various incarnations that came before and made the part her own. And becoming the new young actress that holds nothing back, Rebel Wilson had me snorting with laughter as the self-titled Fat Amy. Playing it straight or for the laughs, I'm anxious to see more of her in the near future. Supporting these two favorite ladies is an ensemble of young, quirky women that each shine in their own way, thanks to both over-the-top and subtle humor working well together, as well as some random smaller performances from the likes of Elizabeth Banks, John Michael Higgins and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Even with the cliches aside, Pitch Perfect is far from perfect, especially when it comes to some juvenile gross-out humor (Aubrey seems to be wound so tightly, vomiting enough to make Regan MacNeil blush is her only real release), but it wasn't enough to turn me away to the rest of the fun on screen. Oh, and the singing isn't bad either.