A sequel that I probably shouldn’t have liked, but did anyway.
What Works: Why didn’t I hate this movie? It’s an unnecessary sequel in a summer that’s full of them, and it combines a lot of my least favorite elements like cover songs, sing-offs, and sloppy plotting, but there’s something inside this movie that’s hard not to like. [Even if it’s really four or five movies rolled into one.]
What I really like is the mixing of different comedic styles: Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins feel like they were brought in from a Christopher Guest movie to provide commentary; Rebel Wilson and Adam DeVine are in a raunchy rom-com; Keegan Michael Key taunts Anna Kendrick in a caustic workplace comedy; and then nearly all the supporting singers/stock-characters are in comedies of their own like oversexed lesbian, creepy Asian girl, and intimidating uber-Europeans.
What Doesn’t: You can tell Anna Kendrick is bored to be in a sequel, and this is a classic case of overstuffing a sequel so that most of the supporting cast is either under-used (Katey Sagal, and Kendrick’s boyfriend from the first movie), unnecessary (Snoop Dogg, David Cross, the Voice coaches, and the Green Bay Packers all have cameos), or are marginalized into getting only one character trait like oversexed lesbian, creepy Asian girl, or intimidating uber-Europeans.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Sequels aren’t usually about understatement but the first Pitch Perfect worked because it was a sleeper hit nobody expected much from, and I doubt the fans of that film really thought “this would be better if the low-key charms of the original were thrown out completely and replaced with bigger and bigger celebrity cameos.”
Loved the movie and loved your review.
You need to review movies for a magazine. Entertainment Weekly needs you.
There reporting has gone WAY down.
I’ll second the previous comment. Your review is really sophisticated. I don’t think I’ve heard a movie reviewer discuss comedic styles in a long time. You also lay out well what a sequel is supposed to do before you say what you would do differently and why instead of just saying something trite like: “It didn’t stay true to the original.” Bravo on the review.