“Pitch Perfect 2,” strikes as a mere encore of a sold out performance. The effort is focused on reprising its previous success, rather than delivering something new, fresh, and original. Such retread tends to bore audience, but it still works, somehow, for this sequel.
The story picks up three years after the events in the first installment. Barden Bellas have already won three national titles, and now they’re singing with the American president in the audience. This should should propel the group toward a bigger success, only it never happens. Because in the end, when a major wardrobe malfunction involving Fat Amy suddenly cleaves into the occasion, their career meets an abrupt shut off. Gravely humiliated, their only shot at redemption, rests on winning the world championships. This pits them against the brutally talented and ruthlessly mean German Group, Das Sound Machine. This load is more than enough for them to bear, but to make it even worse, Beca (Kendrick) is pulled away from the group by competing priorities, most striking is when an internship for a record label comes into view.
The sequel’s efforts to make everything simple is evident as it fixes its spotlight on the same spots that made the first film both fun and moving. At the same time, it also tries to be bigger by introducing new characters, while also developing the old ones. Pitch Perfect 2 is both as mean and sweet as the first outing, and here, both attributes again are well-mixed and given with equal level of importance. From time to time, it throws double-meaning jokes, which may be mostly offensive, but it also places the emotional weight of the narrative on the other side of the bar, to keep the balance, and to make everything with brow-arching tendency, tolerable. The script is also smart to allow key characters to shine.
Most notably, the sequel sheds more light on the franchise’s probably goofiest character, Fat Amy, allowing her deliver a big part of the comic efforts of the movie. Strong supports like the mean commentators, Gail and John, can’t be dismissed too, and those in German group, with their often display of ruthlessness and authority, that would rather send you to laughing, than shrugging. Where it’s most emotional, Beca (Kendrick), is at its center. Anna Kendrick’s character keeps the group altogether, and while she is torn between rival commitments and her personal issues, she once again manages to keep the Bellas’ morale, intact. This doesn’t make the movie more emotionally complex than it should be, but it’s also good to get bits of drama and inspiration, when all you feel is exploding to endless laughter and brittle chuckles.
At some points, there is a sense of wanting for everything to be stronger. There are efforts to tell more with expositions that come into view here and there, but I’ll be honest to tell that these subplots don’t always feel necessary, or properly presented. What makes this sequel equally a stand out, however, is a convincing power of women empowerment. Amidst of all its efforts to entertain and ignite bursts of laughter, there’s a message here, and it imparts a thing or two about equality.
There’s still a lot to negatively comment about “Pitch Perfect 2”, I mean I get it, we all get it. Nothing is perfect, and certainly, this sequel is without flaw. “Pitch Perfect 2” may be singing the same tunes, but what is to not like in a song that puts you in an LSS mode? What sense does babbling about its shortcoming make, when we’ll all end up humming the same songs they’ve sung in the movie, anyway?
RATING: 8/10 (JE)
