Aca-what? Another sequel? Sometimes, and we've seen this repeatedly every year, studios see the opportunities to look at the domestic and worldwide grosses and take advantage of making another movie and try to get the same audience. Rarely, a comedy sequel will be good and works. However, the audience will not want to revisit it again. Pitch Perfect was a very good and successful movie, its sequel, even though it made more money than its predecessor, was ok at best. (I did not like that movie.) So, they want to wrap it up as a trilogy of riches and when hearing they are making a third movie, I asked why? What is next for these characters? Do I even care? Well, this is a comedy that makes you to give you your soul to these Bellas but this movie did not make my heart connected with these characters or make me want to sing.
John and Gail (John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks) are part of a documentary crew that the Bellas are making, filming on what they are doing in their everyday lives. Beca (Anna Kendrick) is a music producer working for Pimp-Lo (Moises Arias), a dim-witted rapper. Beca's boss and Pimp-Lo does not approve of her track with his song and her back-up vocals and because of the lack of support, she quits. Beca tells her room mate, Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), that she quit. Chloe (Brittany Snow) enters to tell her friends that there is a Bella reunion performance later that night.
The ladies meet up later that night at a bar with the rest of their Bella sisters - Aubrey, Cynthia Rose, Stacie, Lilly, Flo, Jessica and Ashley (Anna Camp, Ester Dean, Alexis Knapp, Hana Mae Lee, Chrissie Fit, Kelley Jakle and Shelley Regner). However, to their disappointment, Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), the leader of the Bella, invited them to watch Emily and her group sing. They all feel bad that they are not getting anywhere and Aubrey mentions that there is a USO performance tour that her dad can get them in, and if successful, they will get to open for DJ Khaled. Except for Stacie because she is pregnant, the rest of the Bellas agree and go.
I was not interested in the movie going in because of the let-down of its sequel. However, I liked this movie a bit more than the second movie but does not reach the heights of the freshness of the first movie. It is a different movie in which the Bellas are going to perform just for the fun of it because each and every one of them after the tour have their own dreams towards the end. There is a bit of edginess from the first movie that is in this movie but not enough because two side-plots ruin this movie, one involving John Lithgow as Fat Amy's dad, who gives a bad performance. It is an action sub-plot that is so irrelevant to the spirit of the trilogy. And, then, there is a predictable subplot where Beca gets an opportunity. It is exactly like that second movie.
I will admit I laughed more, Anna Kendrick's character is not as interesting anymore compared to the first movie and Rebel Wilson is still funny, but spewing off the same weight jokes and other inappropriate, miscellaneous comedy. And, I complained about the mean-spirited humor from the commentators in the last movie, Higgins' and Banks' chemistry was better this time and I chuckled more because it translates into the Bellas' path of life. There were fun moments in some scenes but I have to be honest, this was not a necessary movie and neither was the second movie, so, they should have left the first movie as it should be: a nice coming-of-age and inspiring college comedy about the celebration of music. Even though it is not as a-ca-terrible than I thought, there are too many distractions from its main material to warrant a recommendation from me.
**1/2
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