Pitch Perfect ☆☆☆½

I used to be a Glee fan. I will always be a musical theatre fan. And I am a fan of a decent rom com.
Basically give me singing, dancing, and a small amount of romance with a lot of comedy and I'll be a happy bunny no matter how trite the plot. Like I said, I used to be a Glee fan, I can cope with pretty much anything.

Which is why I wanted to give Pitch Perfect a go. That and I really do enjoy Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson's acting abilities.

Though I have strong objections to the way her name is spelt, this film concentrates on Beca (Anna Kendrick), a college freshman whose passion involves mixing music NOT singing. She is in college against her will but at the bequest of her Father, who has a condition that she must try and find a club to belong to and 'make memories', then if she really hates it she can move to LA and try to make it in the music business.

Of course this is where the singing and dancing comes in, as the group she finds is the all female A Capella group The Bellas, led by Brittany Snow (Hairspray, Prom Night) as Chloe and Anna Camp (True Blood) as Aubrey.
Aubrey is the real leader who has something to prove after an embarrassing exit in the finals of last years A Capella competition. Chloe is a confident but submissive co-chair who wants Beca in the group after making her perform an audition in the shower...yeah I was a bit disturbed by the casual nature of the intimidation but there was no malice involved so I think it was okay.

The Bellas main rivals are on-campus all-male A Capella group the Treblemakers, who won last years competition and generally out-do the girls because their music choices do not begin and end with eighties female empowerment records. They are led by Bumper, played by Jack Black wannabe Adam DeVine (you might recognise him from the most recent Sim City ads) and joined by Jesse who is played by Skylar Astin, the Dane Cook of this generation. Don't know who Dane Cook is? Thats probably a good thing as it means you haven't been subjected to his 'stand-up' or movies such as Good Luck Chuck. Though Dan In Real Life is worth a watch.

The rivalry is fun, the singing is pretty good and the sing-off between all the groups on campus is a good watch.

Rebel Wilson is without doubt the star of this film as she brings her no-bullshit style of comedy and is obviously ad-libbing wherever she can. The name of her character is 'Fat Amy' and its the best reason for a name ever, 'So that twigs like you can't call me it behind my back'. Genius. She also gets one of my favourite lines of the movie "I'm gonna finish him like a cheesecake!" There is some really great humour in this film.

The romance between Beca and Jesse is cheesy but fine, its not gonna make you vomit for the sacchirine but also its not so dead you wonder why its even there.
Anna Kendrick's performance is great, she pulls off the loner-type well but also has a decent set of pipes on her. I hope she continues to do well, make the right choices in films etc. So far Pitch Perfect has been the furthest away from Up in the Air (for which she was Oscar nommed) but I enjoyed it a lot.

Director Jason Moore has relatively few TV/movie credits but did get Tony nominated for directing Avenue Q, a funny and dark puppet musical, and I felt he handled this movie particularly well. There are moments of real gross-out humour that I could have done without, but then again it is probably meant to appeal to the American Pie lovers rather than the Glee ones anyway.

This film is meant for an older audience than Glee would normally attract, with it being set in college and having talk of sex, and it benefits from this. There are a wide range of characters, from the girl who no one can hear to the boy whose passion involves close up magic, as well as the stock characters of romantic leads, mouthy girl, and uptight drama queen.

It might have helped I was drinking cider (only one pint) through the film so my expectations were that much lower and my inclination to laugh that much higher. I am pretty sure that a sober viewing would still induce the same amount of enjoyment.

So yeah, give Pitch Perfect a go if you enjoy musicals and rom coms, wouldn't recommend it to anyone who loathes Glee though.