Pitch Perfect

DB
Sep 10
3 min read

'Perfect' it isn't, but it's still pretty damn good fun.

Chloe (Brittany Snow), Beca (Anna Kendrick) and Aubrey (Anna Camp) leading the Barden Bellas - from Pitch Perfect

Here's what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...

MOVIES

Master and Commander: Far Side of the World

4K disk received, watched and loved - still one of the best movies made so far in the 21st century.

Pitch Perfect

Movie summary: Beca, a freshman at Barden University, is cajoled into joining The Bellas, her school's all-girls singing group. Injecting some much needed energy into their repertoire, The Bellas take on their male rivals in a campus competition. (IMDb)

I've seen Pitch Perfect at least half a dozen times now, but this was probably the first time in more than a decade and, while most of it matched what was in my memory, there were a few more issues this time around that I either didn't notice or did and forgot about in the meantime.

First off, something that just bothered me more this time than before was how very obviously a large portion of the cast are completely the wrong age to play the characters they have and seeing what a very clearly full-grown adults be worried about what should be trivial stuff for them does make some of their behaviour come across as somewhat pathetic.

The romance between Beca (Anna Kendrick) and Jesse (Skylar Astin) also really didn't work for me in the slightest, feeling like it was added just for the sake of there being a romance in this college-set movie - and also explains why I didn't remember it at all until it came up in the film.

There's also a lot of connective tissue between major scenes/sequences that feels like it exists solely to get the story from one part to the next, rather than feeling like natural breaks between those moments that fit into the story and maintain momentum.

All that said, this is a case of criticism through exception, as pretty much everything else about Pitch Perfect ranges from good to great.

Yes, some of the actors are very much the wrong ages for their characters, but their performances are still hugely enjoyable to watch, aided by everyone feeling very different from each other and a lot of the various combinations we're given helping to provide a decent level of variety to proceedings.

I really enjoyed the humour too, which has a level of variety to match the different characters, ranging from clever wordplay and character-based stuff right down to gross-out material involving making 'snow' angels in a puddle of puke that had been projectile-vomited moments earlier.

Finally, the music sequences are thankfully pretty great too, because the film really would've floundered otherwise, and the final performances from both the guys and the girls are fantastic to watch, even if the romantic undertones of the latter from Beca to Jesse still don't really work.

Pitch Perfect is a really good movie that is huge fun to watch despite some very obvious flaws, although it's only really the tacked-on romance that brings the film down for me, although some might find the actors closer to thirty than their teens a little hard to take seriously. [8/10]

GAMES

Death Stranding

Still progressing and still taking my time, which helps to avoid me getting frustrated at how badly trucks in this game handle in the snow - very annoying!

???

I've been playing a collection of games that are of a type I've never played before and most likely never will again when I'm done, but have a few still to go before I go through them all in one big dump.

All I'll say as hints are that they were given away free on GOG a while back and are a type of game that made me expect certain things to be featured - which they were - but a few of them contained some very pleasant surprises.

Also currently playing: Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)

TV

Okay, so I haven't watched another show or even picked one out as I've decided to just go ahead and start watching Rebels.

There are a lot of other shows I want to watch, but are also multi-season affairs which would leave it a long time until getting back to the Star Wars stuff and I'd rather get up to date with a galaxy far, far away before getting immersed in another fictional 'universe'.