Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) Film Review

First, this college acapella group were competing in the national competition. Next, they entered an international competition. So, now what? Unsurprisingly, the singing part of their college career has not left them with many skills for the real world (though didn’t they do degrees and stuff as well? That seems unimportant in the Pitch Perfect world). So, they get together and go to entertain the troops, but end up competing with a rock band, a maybe hipster/country group and a DJ and MC for… well, it seems for the opportunity to do exactly the same thing they’ve been doing the whole time?

Look, you shouldn’t watch this film for logical storylines, or real life, or any kind of actual plausibility. But if you like silliness and fun and singing and self-aware dialogue, you should definitely watch this. I loved it to bits because it is totally ridiculous and silly. I loved Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) as an action hero, trying to connect to her criminal father, Fergus (John Lithgow with the most terrible and strange accent ever). I loved the interactions between Gail (Elizabeth Banks) and John (John Michael Higgins) despite there being no logical reason for them to be there at all. I loved seeing Ruby Rose rocking it as a kick-arse rock chick, but then joining in on the singing.

Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) Film Review

The girls are back, and after a disastrous performance, they are banned from US competition, but can still compete on the world scene. If they win at the world champs, they can come back. However Beca (Anna Kendrick) is distracted with becoming a major record producer) and so has not got enough time for the Bellas. There are other things happening too.

I laughed. A lot. But like the first one, I suspect that I should not watch it again because it is perhaps a one-off laugh film. There is a lot that is totally insane about the film: about the characters, about the storylines, about everything. But, if you can, get past it and just laugh. If at nothing else, laugh at the German group. They are magnificent and hilarious and I love them.

 

Pain & Gain (2013) Film Review

Based on a true story, this follows bodybuilder Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) and his two sidekicks, Paul Doyle (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) as he attempts to become rich of the back of his extremely unpleasant personal training client Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub).

I wonder how much of the story has been changed to make this film. The violence is quite unpleasant, but as long as you can get through that, it’s extremely funny. The characters are insane, extremely unbelievable and over-the-top, but fabulous. And then Rebel Wilson turns up, and she’s just doing so darn well. And Ed Harris. And Ken Jeong. It’s a pretty darned funny film.

Pitch Perfect (2012) Film Review

In colleges across America, there are a cappella groups who compete for prizes. Sort of like Glee, only in college. Pitch Perfect follows two groups from Barden University – the champion male group, the Treblemakers, and all-girl hopeful Barden Bellas. After a hilarious and gross disaster in the previous year’s event, Bellas members Becca and Chloe are struggling to put together a group, and end up with less-than-perfect physical specimens. But they have to find a way to pull together to win.

It’s corny and cheesy, but still a lot of fun. Really, it’s just like a singing version of Bring It On. No complaints here; I loved Bring It On. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of some of the comments Rebel Wilson made – I really liked her character but felt that the unnecessary racism was pretty tedious. I find racist humour just makes people look stupid. One could argue that Wilson’s character of Fat Amy is stupid and that’s why the racist comments should be allowed. Is that valid? Instinctively, I say no.

Bridesmaids (2011) Film Review

There’s nothing I like more than being in a full cinema that is roaring with laughter. That’s what seeing Bridesmaids was like a few years ago; me, a bunch of my mates and a lot of laughing. Critics and the media were raving about how marvelous it was to have women being funny.

If you don’t know, the story is that Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting married and appoints her best friend Annie (Kristen Wiig) as her maid-of-honour. However, Annie is post-break-up, has recently had her cupcake business go under and is pretty much a mess, and between her own craziness and jealousy of Lillian’s new friend Helen (Rose Byrne), Annie makes a mess of all of the pre-wedding events.

So why was it that I dreaded watching it again? It was really two scenes from the film that kept popping up in my mind; the speeches at the engagement party and the food poisoning/dress fitting. These extremely over-the-top scenes were all I could remember, and I hated them. The grossness of the food poisoning scene was just totally unnecessary and on a second watch, it really brings little to the film. Although, I suppose, it got people talking. As for the one-upmanship between Annie and Helen during the engagement speech, it just felt unrealistic and annoying.

Finally, I decided to push through and just watch it and I was delighted to find that these two scenes felt very out-of-place. There was a lot of over-the-top craziness, but there was also a lot of heart. I liked it a lot more than I expected to. I especially liked the friendship between Annie and Lillian, which felt very genuine.

It was awesome to see so many strong female actors in the film, even if some were playing very over-the-top caricatures. I expect that I’ll see whatever is touted as the next Bridesmaids, but I hope it doesn’t force the comedy so much as this did.