Follow Your Passion: A Seamless Tumblr Journey
Rating: 7.7 of 10
A sequel about an all-female college a capella group, The Barden Bellas’ fall from grace and rise to victory--there are a lot of things I appreciated in Pitch Perfect 2. I liked the fact that we were not forced to retread the same things all over again, even though there were similarities. I liked the fact that they didn’t shoehorn random conflicts between Beca (Anna Kendrick) and Jesse (Skylar Astin). I liked how they didn’t seem to aim for “bigger, faster, louder” approach that too often happen in sequels (and then ended up being worse), even though there were a bunch of celebrity cameos (even President Obama!) and that was quite fun.
There were also, a lot of flaws. The script was okay, but what hurt the movie the most was that it had uneven pacing, and sort of aimless. Until this time, I don’t even know who is supposed to be the lead character: is it Beca (most likely), or is it Emily (Hailee Steinfeld)? That is, honestly, the most damning thing I can think of when we talk about movies. Emily was cute and quirky enough but was absent too often from the scenes, while Beca was too distant for us to actually care. Anna Kendrick was gravely, gravely underused in this film, especially considering she was actually the focus of the movie. Those things could be alleviated if only the movie had stronger directing, but sadly, ultimately Pitch Perfect 2 was too “loose” to be a good movie. The movie improved a bit after the Bellas went into retreat and came out a group again (which was, admittedly, the point of the movie), but it was too little too late.
The rest of the characters didn’t fare any better. In the previous movie, the supporting characters (Cynthia Rose, Stacie, and Lilly) were also treated as comic relief and spoke almost entirely in one-liners, but they had something resembling character development and we ended up caring for them. This time, they were held back so far into irrelevance and almost completely replaced by one Guatemalan member, Flo (Chrissie Fit), who was the subject of 100% exclusively racist jokes with 0% development. Maybe they had ulterior motive--that they were using comedic lines to communicate the terrible things that happen there? Honestly, I don’t even know but it sure didn’t feel like it.
There’s one other character that I hoped were used more: Jesse (Skylar Astin). I understand why he had such a small role in Pitch Perfect 2--there’s no place for him in the story--but I just wish we see him more because I actually think his charm might save the movie. Instead, we see Benji (Ben Platt) and Bumper (Adam DeVine) in his place. Benji was cute enough, but he doesn’t have Skylar Astin’s charm, and Bumper was too annoying for my taste in such extended role.
At the very least, Pitch Perfect 2 was still quite funny. Thankfully Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) was still Fat Amy, and it was still glorious. Pitch Perfect’s humor always stood on the side of wrong and sharp, and I loved it.
The songs were good, but sadly not as memorable as the ones in the first Pitch Perfect, because I think they’re less unique. That didn’t stop me from toe-tapping, of course, and I still enjoyed them immensely (especially the Das Sound Machine ones). TL;DR That, sadly, also summarizes Pitch Perfect 2 perfectly: good but not memorable.
One thing I've been coming back to a lot recently is a song by Information Society called "Where the I Divides."
This is me getting some emotional stuff through my system by singing it to myself, accompanied only by a soft drizzle and some late-night/early-morning city traffic outside my apartment window.
I multitrack a capella'd "Tom's Diner."
I'm your Suzanne Vega now.
This also exists on Soundcloud.
I took some video of part of my rail commute and set it to the English-language cover of Yatta! I made recently; the result turned out surprisingly mellow. More info and an MP3 download in the track's original post.
Captioned lyrics are included if you click through to YouTube. Here's the direct YouTube link for embedophobes.
This goofy track has gotten a far kinder response here and elsewhere than I thought it would; thanks, Internet! I shall have to do more musical things.
I started playing with recording over my own voice in multitrack, and after about an hour and a half this accidentally happened.
If you're one of the poor unfortunate souls who haven't experienced the glorious original version, here's the video and here's the Wikipedia article. I put together these lyrics based on multiple English translations floating around out there; I think I've kept the basic gist of each line intact.
I have no regrets; if nothing else, at least I actually hit every sour note without pitch-bending or autotuning of any kind.
Download this track here if you're unwell enough to want to do such a thing.
There's a music video now as well.