Boy, it's been more than a decade since I saw the first sequel. I don't remember when I put the predecessor on my Netflix list; I may have ignored it many times. But I was finally in the mood for a flick with a lot of decent singing, regardless of any other virtues.
After a disastrous performance at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, the all-female Barden Bellas are down to Aubrey (Anna Camp) and Chloe (Brittany Snow). They can't be too picky, so the new recruits are a motley crew. Some get kicked out for intimacy with the Bellas' fiercest on-campus rivals, the all-male Treblemakers. The main internal conflict concerns Beca (Anna Kendrick), who has a habit of pushing people away but does great at mashups, which hidebound, bossy Aubrey rejects.
I don't include the "politically incorrect" tag this time, because it's not half as noticeable as in PP2. Guatemalan Bella Flo hasn't arrived yet, Cynthia Rose (Esther Dean) doesn't emphasize her Blackness and only sporadically flaunts her orientation, Asian Bella Lilly (Hana Mae Lee) doesn't act as weird, and ICCA commentator John (John Michael Higgins) doesn't play his bigotry to the hilt. The only overt racism is when Beca's unfriendly Asian roommate, Kimmy (Jinhee Joung), calls her "the White girl." Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) is pretty much the same, but we're not encouraged to laugh at her obesity so much as how people deal with it.
This is not to say there's no major exaggeration. We get quite the preponderance of shameless jerks, beyond some mentioned above. Bumper (Adam Devine), leader of the Treblemakers, respects nobody, so how he and Fat Amy have a love-hate relationship is beyond me. A graduate singing group picks a physical fight with current contestants. At least Luke (Freddie Stroma), Beca's abrasive radio station manager, comes to appreciate her. I'm relieved to say that the two newest and most prominent Treblemakers, Beca-courting Jesse (Skylar Astin) and nerdy Benji (Ben Platt), are gentlemen.
Is the humor any better? Maybe marginally. It loses points for being yet another 2010s comedy in which a woman barfs on somebody. But I did chuckle once or twice, which I usually don't when I watch alone.
The music? Well, some of it's lame on purpose, but the rest is good to great, and I agree with the competition judges. The mashups, especially at the finale, are the highlight to my mind.
I have no intention of watching PP3, partly because I now know how much of a retread PP2 was. But PP1 was worth checking out, eventually.
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