3.5/5 Pitch Perfect 2 As it turns out, the third week of May has shaped up to be one of the most important weeks of the year in terms of movies. This is the week strong women took over the multiplex and kicked more butt than all of us puny men combined. In Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa led a band of lady warriors on a mission to rip faces and drive hard. The musical women of Pitch Perfect 2, known as the Barden Bellas, may not be driving big rigs, but they are sure enough playing by their own rules. They sing, crack jokes, jab sexism, dream big, and let their freak flags fly. Sounds like a good time to me. Three years have passed since we last saw the Bellas fight there way to a championship win. Now, with graduation looming, they are each having to look past the their club and into he real world. The big-girl blues are hitting no one harder than Anna Kendrick’s Beca, who is still dreaming about becoming a music producer. While a new internship hints at a bright future, this subplot is most effective as comic relief, thanks to a grumpy music producer played by the great Keegan-Michael Key. I’m getting ahead of myself. Beca’s real-world probs are not your biggest concern, I know. You want to know what’s going on with the Bellas, as you should. We begin the movie with the ladies at the top of their game. Riding a wave of successes, they have made it to the Kennedy Center, where they are playing to none other than POTUS himself - the stock footage of President Obama is priceless in its execution. Unfortunately for them (but lucky for us), Rebel Wilson’s Fat Amy, easily the MVP of both films, has a mooning accident while suspended in the air for the world to see. The word “muffgate” may or may not be used to described the debacle. | Director: Elizabeth Banks Starring: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Elizabeth Banks, Keegan-Michael Key Writer: Kay Cannon |
It’s true, PP2 is just as shamelessly silly and nonsensical as the original, but it has one thing that the first installment lacks: Elizabeth Banks at the helm. Along with her recurring role as an announcer alongside John Michael Higgins, a union that produces some of the film’s best gags, Banks has taken over directorial duties from Jason Moore. Turns out all this franchise needed was a woman’s touch. Banks, a first time director, strips most everything that did not work in the original - a prominent role for the Treblemakers - and amps up everything that did - Rebel Wilson! the laughs! the bonds of sisterhood!
The Treblemaker guys still factor in, especially in a subplot that involves Fat Amy - three words: canoe. Pat Benatar. However, they are far from the annoying antagonists they were in the first film. It’s just that none of their characters stuck. The same goes for some of the Bellas. Ester Dean’s Cynthia seems to only exist to throw in a few “I’m the gay one” jokes. Hana Mae Lee’s one-note role as Lilly is similarly pointless.
Not all of the jokes in PP2 stick. When the zingers are flying at you at this rate, it is not surprising that some fall flat. Saying that, when the jokes do actually hit, they hit big. The first film had this same problem, but it was off balance in favor of the duds. Returning screenwriter Kay Cannon does a much better job of balancing out the good with the bad. One running gag that finds a sexually-confused Beca trying to diss her intimidating German competitor with lines like “Oh yeah? Well your sweat smells like cinnamon!” is especially affecting.
With most of the central cast having graduated, it’s hard to imagine a Kendrick-less, Wilson-less sequel being quite this good. Only time will tell, because it’s almost inevitable that it will come. But that day is not today. Today, and I’ll end this review the same way I did yesterday’s, women rule the world.