Pitch Perfect 3 goes the way of comedy sequels or an actual a capella performance. You’re excited at the beginning, and then things start repeating. And again. And again. And when people try something different, your eyebrow raises a little, but it’s not fun, it’s just…different. I’m glad I saw Pitch Perfect 3 after Christmas, because it is just a bummer of a sequel that pales in comparison to the first or even the half decent second film.
All the Barden Bellas except Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) have graduated. Beca (Anna Kendrick) and Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) live together in New York City making little money. They see that Emily has a Bellas reunion she invites them all to, so Beca and Fat Amy run into Chloe (Brittany Snow), Aubrey (Anna Camp), Lilly (Hanna Mae Lee), Cynthia (Ester Dean), and Flo (Chrissie Fit) at the reunion, also unhappy in their lives. The group gets help from Aubrey to go sing for the troops on tour, where the best group will go on tour with DJ Khaled.
Pitch Perfect 3 feels like the writers got a lot of money to make a third film, and lazily put it together. Dialogue in this movie is written like joke setups instead of characters trying to talk to one another. Beca will say something….for Fat Amy to insert a double entendre. Conversations stall immediately cause a character has a “zinger” that stops the conversation instead of building on it. There’s also forced insertion of references from earlier films that feel lazy and contribute nothing to the plot. The only welcome call backs are John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks, whose bitchy announcers are still funny, but you can only use them so much. Movies like 22 Jump Street got around it by finding ways to wink about itself, but here scenes like a riff off, or a crazy party, just exist and contribute nothing to the overall story; at least Pitch Perfect 2 had great cameos; here, there are zero cameos and pointless characters (sorry Ruby Rose) that exist only because they fit the framework of the first 2 films. Pitch Perfect 3 hurts most in the male cast, because all the leads from the first 2 films are gone and replaced by robotic stand-ins.
Normally I would write another paragraph, but Pitch Perfect 3 has so little else going for it that it would be wasting your time. Instead of going out to see this movie, just check your Netflix or cable TV and see when the original is on, and just watch that instead. A disappointing aca-ending, for sure.