It’s been three years since the Barden University Bellas won their first a cappella national title. And what a three years it’s been. They’re the royalty of the U.S. a cappella establishment, winning awards year after year while traveling to events all around the country. It’s been such a blissful stretch that one of the group’s leaders, Chloe, is now happily embarking on her seventh year of college—relentlessly shifting majors and class loads just so she can keep lilting with her golden-throated BFFs.
This is the year, however, that calamity strikes.
During a special performance—in front of the president of the United States and his family, no less—Fat Amy has a major wardrobe malfunction. Make that a wardrobe nuclear holocaust. While hanging suspended from the auditorium ceiling by bands of silk, she slips, splits her tights open and reveals to the crowd, well, let’s just say it this way: that she isn’t wearing any underwear.
This embarrassing mishap not only makes national headlines, it also gets the Bellas totally banned from any further domestic a cappella competitions. The devastated singers have only one chance at redemption: they must do what no other American team has ever done before and win the World A Cappella Championships in Copenhagen.
And if you think that’ll be tough, you ain’t just whistling Dixie … with eight-part syncopated harmony.
In fact, at this point it appears to be something of an impossible feat. For the humiliated Bellas seem to have lost their musical mojo. The group’s arranger and mash-up mastermind, Beca, has all but checked out as she works toward a post-graduation music career. And on top of that, an impressive German group appears nearly unbeatable.
Can the girls possibly pull together for one last full-throated effort?
Is this a musically minded sequel?
As the girls work to rebuild their group, they realize how important it is to enjoy the time they have together—to value one another’s skills and friendship. And some of them, Chloe and Beca at the fore, come to realize that taking the next step in life can be a rewarding, even if difficult, experience.
We see Fat Amy and a guy named Bumper kiss and roll around on top of each other. It’s implied that they regularly sneak away for sexual trysts. Seeing far less than her presidential audience sees, we still catch a glimpse of Amy’s bare backside when her costume rips.
One of the Bellas is an openly gay girl who eyes several of her cohorts seductively and later admits to secretly touching one of the other girl’s “goodies” while they’re camping out and all sleeping together. A new Bella recruit named Emily talks about the five-octave range her mother and father managed to sing out while having sex.
In rehearsals the Bellas wear yoga pants, and the camera takes time to ogle their backsides. The Das Sound Machine group often wears mesh shirts that showcase guys’ bare chests and girls’ cleavage. During a sing-off, various groups compete in the category of “Songs About Butts.” A guys’ a cappella group sings an innuendo-laden song about girls “sucking too hard.”
There are a number of jokes and puns about straight, gay and transgendered sex, as well as some lowbrow talk about body parts, erections, etc.
The girls experience a few pratfall thumps during campsite teambuilding exercises.
One use of “effing” and a handful of s-words. We also hear several uses each of “a–,” “d–n,” “b–ch” and “h—.” “Oh my god” is spit out a half-dozen times. References to genitalia include “d–k.” Fat Amy flips her middle finger at someone. A girl is called an “Asian Jesus.”
These co-eds (some of them still teens) drink beer and hard liquor at a couple of different parties and a singing competition.
There are lots of crude gags tossed around about Amy’s televised crotch exposure. (The explicit visual documentation is kept just out of our sight.) Amy blasts out several scatological quips about camping without toilet paper. And this cast isn’t above loosing a few globally minded ethnic slurs.
The world-famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen once said, “Where words fail, music speaks.” And from a certain perspective, this movie backs that up.
If the pic contained nothing more than its current collection of tightly choreographed and gorgeously arranged a cappella mash-ups—strung together, say, with reflective moments of unvarnished silence—well, we might start talking about whether or not we could really call this flick pitch perfect.
Unfortunately, there are all those other … words to contend with.
Just like its cinematic predecessor, Pitch Perfect 2 has a few genuinely funny moments and some likeable characters. But most of those unnecessarily wordy parts—where the tuneful collegians have to talk instead of sing—are packed full of randy-to-raunchy pun beats and laugh-line low-notes. And that’s saying nothing further about Fat Amy’s “accident.” Or even her nickname.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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