A Review: Pitch Perfect Falls Flat

Damn.

I suppose I could leave that up as my one word review, but you might be confused and think I meant it as a good thing.  I do not.  I do not at all.

Listen, I love a good cheesy teen movie.  I love Bring It On.  I love Center Stage.  I love 10 Things I Hate About You.  The cheesier, the better.  The more dancing, cheering, singing the better.  But this?  Oof.

Here’s the basic plot:  18 year old angry girl (played by Bella Swan’s best friend), who is mad at the world because her parents got divorced, is going to college on a full ride because her father is a professor.  She hates him, hates the world, and wants to be in LA “making it” as a DeeJay.  She has more expensive equipment and a better dorm room than a Winklevoss twin, without any of the charm of an Armie Hammer.

Angry Girl joins the Barden Bellas, an all-girl accapella group, as a means of getting her evil father (he is evil because he asks her to enjoy her college experience–literally) to let her quit school.  They make a deal that if she can join a club and STILL hate school, he will pay for her to go to LA. 

So, will Angry Girl gel with the Bellas, love college and stay in school?  Or will she find these Cheertator Rip-Offs as annoying as I did, pack up her mixing gear and head for LA?

But that’s not really the plot.  It might be.  The plot might also be about the Barden Bellas, an inexplicably victorious group that dresses like 70s flight attendants, whose last run for first place ended when inexplicably beastly blonde (played by Sarah Newlin, who says things like, “Acca-scuse me?!”), inexplicably vomited during her solo on The Sign (okay, maybe not inexplicably.)  Now, they have lost all their hot counterparts because no one likes chunk blowing Cheertators Accatators, and Beastly Blonde and Perky Redhead (played by Amber Von Tussle the Lesser) are trying to find 8 replacement girls to get them back into the finals to beat their main rivals, the Treble Makers–Barden’s all-boy accapella group.

Wait–that is also not the plot.  There is also the plotline with Angry Girl and Doofus (played by some random, who I think is supposed to recall Van Wilder), who both work at the college radio station as interns with only one other (presumed) upper-classman with an inexplicable British accent.  Inexplicably, this (the only hot guy in the mix) person gets maybe 15 seconds of screen time.  Doofus loves Angry Girl and tries to woo her with The Breakfast Club, but is getting Acca-blocked because Angry Girl is Angry and Does Not Trust Love, and also, Beastly Blonde says Bellas can’t date Trebles.  God.

Further subplottery is:  Beastly Blonde is married to the song routine which has served her faithfully in the past.  Angry Girl wants to mix it up.  Will Angry Girl mix it up so much that she loses the whole show for the Bellas?  And can Beastly and Angry work out their differences to make the Bellas truly beautiful?

I will not even touch on the weird Elizabeth Banks/Fred Willard roles. 

If any of this sounds good to you, trust me, it is not.  It is not good.  It is awful.  The best parts of this movie all have to do with clips showing the last 5 seconds of The Breakfast Club.

As for this being a breakout role for Rebel Wilson…  No.  Just a bunch of fat jokes at her expense.

House Bunny was a better movie.  House Bunny was a better movie by a thousand.

Awful.  Sad.  Boring.

0 Stars out of 5