Review: A capella comedy offers audience many laughs

If you wanted a movie with an exciting twist, a suspenseful plot or an original story line, Pitch Perfect your movie.

But if you are looking for a good laugh and you don’t care that most of the acting is sub par and the story line is pretty much what anyone would have guessed then here you are.

Anna Kendrick, of “Twilight” fame and Oscar nominated actress for “Up in the Air” stars as the movie’s rebellious heroine.

Most of the supporting cast of actors are not well known; they add to the script but do not enhance it. However some of the movies main characters, Rebel Wilson (Brynn of “Bridesmaids”) stars as the hilarious Fat Amy, Anna Camp as Aubrey and Brittany Snow as Chloe.

The actors and actresses who are mostly in their mid to late twenties are playing 18-22 year old characters. It would be nice if actors could play characters that matched their aged groups for once. But that is a minor detail that does not hinder the movie.

The story centers at the fictional Barden University where Kendrick’s Beca is starting as a freshman. Beca is unhappy starting college because she dreamed of moving to LA to become a DJ. During a club fair Beca meets seniors Aubrey (Camp) and Chloe (Snow) the leaders of the all girl a capella group the Bellas.
Angsty Beca initially does not want to join the Bellas or any other campus activity. So her dad makes her promise that if she joins a campus group and after a year, if she is still unhappy and doesn’t want to go to college he will allow her to move to L.A. and try her hand at a music career.

The university has 4 a capella groups, two of which are irrelevant to the story. The Bellas are enemies with an all boys group, The Treble Makers, who always win the singing competitions. The Treble Makers are led by Bumper, he’s pretty much a tool. You want to slap him for being such a jerk but many of the film’s laughs should be credited to him.

The Bellas were formerly made up of the quintessential “pretty girls” but after a humiliating scene at a competition the year before they lost respect and most of their members leaving only Aubrey and Chloe and during auditions they are given a group of misfit outcasts to reform the Bellas with.

The Bellas only sing songs made famous by women, usually older hits that they sing at every competition. Desperate to win and stop the humiliation, Beca suggests that they sing more current upbeat tunes. But Aubrey will not allow it and the argument between the two girls literally spans throughout the entire movie up until there is ten minutes left of the movie and the Bellas are about to compete against the Treble makers and other college a capella groups at the international championship for college a capella (ICCA). This argument should have been something that was resolved early on but then the script wouldn’t have been long enough. My main issue with the ridiculous arguing was how immature it was, it was silly and unbelievable.

The characters are hilarious, the singing is pretty good, some of the jokes are raunchy but not so inappropriate that kids couldn’t see the film and oh and there’s a forbidden romance.

“Pitch Perfect” is a dumb movie with great laughs that entertains the audience throughout the entire film. I would suggest seeing this if you are into silly comedies.

The film releases today and runs for 112 minutes.