PITCH PERFECT

*** (out of ****)

Here’s what we know: Pitch Perfect, impossible not to call Glee: The Movie, is about the four a capella teams at Barden University, a school that treats a capella groups more seriously than any school should (maybe the fictional front office of the school had also seen Glee, and tried to fictionally capitalize. We know that this is a Mall Movie. We know that the good guys will win, and the bad guys will get their comeuppance. We know that everything will be telegraphed from 100 yards away. These are the things we accept when we decide that we are going to watch a movie like Pitch Perfect. What we don’t know is whether or not the cast and crew of Pitch Perfect  is going to push this movie past its inbred cheese level, and make it just good enough to not be thrown back into the trash heap with the Twilights and the Step Ups. They did it. Just barely, but they did it. Let’s figure out who to give the credit to, shall we?

This is the first movie Jason Moore has directed, primarily because he’s been too busy doing stage shit, like directing Avenue Q,  a musical that most certainly didn’t feel like it was ran through the Broadway Factory, if that even exists as a thing. As a filmmaker, there’s not a ton to speak of, but as the cattle driver in charge, trying to tie everybody up and get them in the same stable, he does a pretty good job. This does come at a cost, mainly the shutting down of Adam Devine, of Workaholics fame, who plays Asshole #1. Adam Devine may be on the verge of movie stardom, but he might have to wait until he gets his own movie. Until then, Moore reigns him in, which makes him gel with the movie more, but at the cost of laughs.

When the world finally needs another comedy from Will Ferrell or Jim Carrey, he will appear.

Rebel Wilson is not reigned in. Wilson plays Fat Amy, a confidently fat member of an a capella group, who credits much of her confidence on the fact that she owns how fat she is before anyone else can make fun. Wilson, who had a memorable scene or two in Bridesmaids, is seemingly allowed to go off script whenever a pithy line pops into her head. Anyone who does this will typically get all of the laughs, but have a terrible batting average, delivering just as many duds as jokes that work. I’m not blaming Wilson for this, as she’s not the one in the editing room, picking and choosing which lines worked and which one’s didn’t. Ultimately, Wilson is leaned on so much that it shows a lack of faith in the other performers around her, and rightfully so.

Everyone, that is, except for Anna Kendrick, who may be able to do for these kind of comedies what Angelina Jolie did for action movies, which is find a niche where you are equally enjoyed by men and women at the same time. Kendrick is given nothing but clichés here: she plays a cooler-than-thou music nerd, who you can tell is a badass because of the amount of dark eye make-up she wears. She is bored by everything, which leads to nothing but a boring character. Kendrick doesn’t force the issue, though, and picks all of the right times to let up off of the bitch pedal. It doesn’t make her transformation into team player any less transparent, but it does make the transition smoother. I don’t know if Kendrick will make the Hall of Fame, but she remains entirely likeable.

I have no specific talents or distinguishing features!

Finally, there’s the music. The music of Pitch Perfect is new as shit, which means I had never heard of any of it (don’t know why they couldn’t have at least picked a few songs from Soundgarden’s Superunknown so I would have known what was going on). But it’s not boring, and it’s not overused, and both of those facts shocked me. The movie even presents its musical numbers in such a way where you can tell the ones that are supposed to be bad, and are really impressed by the ones that are supposed to be good. This is different than Glee, where the teacher imagines a musical number, wrinkles his nose, and the students instantly learn everything telepathically, with no choice but to nail it. Here we see the girls putting in at least a little bit of work.

We have fun! Boring, tepid, unfun fun!

I would have been scared going in to make this movie. On paper, it’s fucked. There’s just not enough there. That’s why I’m giving the credit to Moore, who either knew all of the intangibles he had, and played them against each other in a way that worked, or he just lucked out. I don’t care. If you stay with this movie long enough to make it to an a capella sing-off, which takes place at the bottom of an emptied pool, you’ll be surprised by the size of the goofy fucking smile you’ll be wearing. If you make it to the sing-off and you’re not smiling, just turn it off. The movie, just like your life, is only going to get worse for you.

-Ryan Haley