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Review / ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ (M) *

Pitch-Perfect-2THE only word for this sequel written by Kay Cannon to the 2012 farrago of nonsense about an a capella group whose only visible academic activity is competing for the title of America’s best, is crap.

And the crap is also fraudulent. The 2012 Bellas are about to graduate. They’ve blotted their copybook at a performance when Fat Amy (Australia’s own Rebel Wilson) experienced a wardrobe malfunction performing a trapeze act before the Obama family.

Their scholarships have been withdrawn. But the World A Capella Championships are in prospect and America has never competed there.

The Bellas are determined to travel to Copenhagen to win, especially over the German group Das Auto, a blatant product placement if ever there was.

So what’s fraudulent about the crap? Well, little of the film’s vocalising purporting to be a capella actually is. The instrumental backing is loud and clear, mainly percussion and plucked strings. The only valid instrument for a capella is the human voice.

Performed against backgrounds of energetic calisthenics, the raucous, hard-to-discern lyrics in the film’s musical sequences say little worth hearing. Linking them together is a vapid plot mostly comprising dramatic empty spaces.

I reckon I deserve some sort of medal for sitting through to the end of “PP2”. To hear authentic a capella, pop along to “Boychoir”.

At all cinemas

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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One Response to Review / ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ (M) *

Jennie says: 8 May 2015 at 3:39 pm

You clearly did not pay attention to what you were supposed to be watching. The German group was actually named Das Sound Machine. It was all a cappella; the only thing they added was more a cappella singers to give it a fuller sound. A cappella means they make instrumental sounds using only their voices…to make it sound like “percussion and plucked strings.” Boy Choir is about a choir. There is a difference between these two types of singing. The entire movie was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, not taken for face value.

While I do not have passionate feelings about this movie, I do have passionate feelings about ignorant people being given public platforms. Just because you don’t like a particulsr style of movie doesn’t mean you can make up your own facts about it. I haven’t even seen this movie, but I ascertained more information about it from Google than you managed to gather by actually watching it.

This particular citynews.com.au article was not “well written.”

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