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Friday, April 26, 2024
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HOLLYWOOD PITCH PERFECT 3
EDITOR'S PICK
Pitch Perfect is hardly perfect, but fun in parts (Review By Subhash K Jha ; Rating: ** )
Thankfully, this franchise has run its course. Though I enjoyed parts of it I
really can't take the showy sassiness of the Bellas any more. The all-girl band
with more attitude than altitude seemed funny in their misplaced selfworth
earlier. Now they look like a bunch of losers held aloft by a script that has
seen better days. Indeed the plot is so thin it stretches itself out into 90
minutes of meandering soggy girl babble, best left to dry itself out in the sun.
Sunny locations in Spain, Italy and France do add some badly-needed pizzas to
the artificially pepped up plot that's peppered with precocity and puerility.
This time the all-girl band gets together to impress DJ Khalid.
That's it. That's the sum-total of the plot. The rest is padding, improvised
musical gigs, doctored romances and staged musical numbers done up with a
vestige of verve that tries to make up for the absence of a genuinely inventive
plot line and a cohesive narrative structure. Very often I could see the girls
struggling to keep the goings-on sturdy on its feet. More often that not the
laughably meager storyline makes the narrative come apart at the seams.
The acting even by a veteran like John Lithgow (playing the obese Rebel Wilson's
Mafioso dad) is largely awful and the dialogues sound like whatsApp jokes strung
together to create a sense of artificial kookiness. Every member of the Bella
band seems to believe in the dictum "Bland Is Grand, Bling Is King". By the time
the bland band jumps into a river from luxury boat (don't ask why or how) the
narrative has sunk to a deplorable low.
If you have an appetite for blingy blandness served up with dollops of
self-deprecatory tongue-in-cheek humid humour, go for it. But be warned. There
is nothing here you would want to take home to sleep over with.
'Pitch Perfect 3': Strained, laboured efforts (Review
By Troy Ribeiro ; Rating: **)
"Age wrinkles the body and quitting wrinkles the soul," enthusiastically blurted
by one of the Bellas simply puts into perspective the continuation of this
series.
Five years after its first appearance as a teen musical to impose its voice in
the panorama of adolescent cinema, this series seems to lose its sheen.
In 2012, when "Pitch Perfect" was released, the Bellas, an-all female A Cappella
(singing without instrumental accompaniment) group from Barden University in the
US made its appearance in a singing competition, they were marvelled at and
hence "Pitch Perfect 2" was an organic expectation.
"Pitch Perfect 2" was able to prolong the achievements of the first and give the
team a new dimension by expanding their ambitions. But the third instalment,
with its cardboard thin plot, seems like a lazy automation of sequels.
The film begins with an action-packed sequence on a yacht somewhere off the
coast of France and then flashes back three weeks earlier to give us an insight
into what led to that disastrous incident.
It is three years after their last performance. The Bellas have graduated
university and moved on in the real world trying to find a foothold in various
careers. So when Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), now a senior at Barden and leader of
a group, invites the Bellas for a performance, they are all excited. But upon
arriving at the event, they are told that the reunion wasn't for the Bellas to
sing together, but to watch Emily perform with the new Bellas.
Disappointed at the turn of events, they realize that their lives are miserable
without being part of the team. So when Aubrey (Anna Camp) tells them about the
overseas, "four country-four days" performance accessed by her Army officer
father, they agree to participate. On arriving at the venue, they realise that
the performance in actuality is a competition where the winner gets to open for
the renowned DJ Khaled.
The others in the competition are the all-female rock band Evermoist helmed by
the striking Australian actress Ruby Rose, a western-country band and a hip-hop
duo.
Between the musical numbers and romantic flirtations, the Bellas are forced to
deal with Fat Amy's long estranged father (John Lithgow), whose desire to
reconnect with his daughter has ulterior motives.
In general, the script by Kay Cannon and Mike White, tries to be very different,
injecting family aspects, action sequences and in a military setting. They are
all half-heartedly induced making the plot seem like too much of a departure
from its predecessors.
The humour may appeal to the fans of this trilogy, but many of them are sadly
just repeats from past films. The only saving grace is the performance of the
cast and their group chemistry, despite the romance tracks being perfunctory.
Overall, despite its excellently performed and choreographed song-and-dance
numbers and decent technical and production values, director Trish Sie, who in
2014 had given us "Step Up: All In", fails to impress us with this film.
Now graduated from college and out in the real world where it takes more than
a cappella to get by, the Bellas return in Pitch Perfect 3, the next chapter in
the beloved series that has taken in more than $400 million at the global box
office.
After the highs of winning the World Championships, the Bellas find themselves
split apart and discovering there aren’t job prospects for making music with
your mouth. But when they get the chance to reunite for an overseas USO tour,
this group of awesome nerds will come together to make some music, and some
questionable decisions, one last time.
Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Hana
Mae Lee, Ester Dean, Alexis Knapp, Chrissie Fit, Kelley Jakle, Shelley Regner,
Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins all return and are joined by additions
including John Lithgow and Ruby Rose. Pitch Perfect 3 is again produced by Paul
Brooks of Gold Circle Entertainment and Max Handelman & Elizabeth Banks of
Brownstone Productions, and is directed by Trish Sie (Step Up All In).
