Today's Review: Pitch Perfect

Pitch Perfect is a movie about a capella groups, singing a capella songs, because a capella is cool nowadays. Not that I have anything against a capella, I've always liked it, but I went into this movie thinking it would be a shameless rip off of Glee with little to no substance. But actually, it's not all that bad.

Anna Kendrick stars as Beca, a girl who is forced to go to college by her father, when all she wants to do is break into the music business. When she finally strikes a deal with her dad, whereby if she still hates college after attending for a year and joining a club she can quit, Beca promptly goes out and enrols in the a capella club. Led by a domineering captain, and performing stale routines, Beca and the rest of the newly joined misfits are quick to shake things up in the wake of their first big competition.

Pitch Perfect is a pretty well oiled machine, but one aimed directly at teenage girls. There are a capella covers of modern songs, with some mash ups thrown in for good measure. Bitchiness and gross out humour abound among the main girls, and there's a nice little romantic sub plot that doesn't really add much to the whole experience. Overall it makes the plot very generic, but thankfully there are enough decent performances and musical numbers to keep the whole production from going under. Anna Kendrick is especially good as the lead, who pretty much steals the show with her performance early on. Even Rebel Wilson, cast as "Fat Amy" as the comic relief, manages to break out of the mould and deliver some nice moves and vocals.

So no, I can't say Pitch Perfect is a great movie. It is merely okay, a generic comedy saved from mediocrity with some good music and a couple of good performances. If you're part of the Glee crowd, you'll probably like this a lot more, but otherwise it might not be worth your time.

My rating: 3/5