Here at The Comeback, a recurring feature called “The Millennial Review” has had young people reviewing movies like Top Gun and Point Break, classics that were released so long ago that it was before the millennials’ time. In the spirit of equal time, I, an old, will spend part of the summer reviewing movies (and other things) geared toward the millennial.
We’ve delivered expert old analysis of The Fault In Our Stars, Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, Pitch Perfect and after a one-week break to look into the lack of sex millennials are having, it’s time to focus on the worst movie I’ve ever seen: Pitch Perfect 2.
The baseball movie Pitch Perfect 2 picks up where the baseball movie Pitch Perfect leaves off — Beca is still on her spiritual quest to find and throw the perfect pitch while balancing a career as an acappella singer with the rest of her late-20s/mid-30s college friends. Everyone, despite all evidence and common sense saying otherwise, is now a senior and part of a three-time defending national championship group, The Bellas.
This movie is as incoherent as a re-occurring baseball joke about a movie title containing baseball terminology. I know this movie isn’t for me, a mid-30s male who doesn’t understand why musical theater even exists in 2016, but it is a trainwreck of epic proportions. It’s a collection of story lines and out-of-place set pieces like I’ve never seen in a movie. It’s all filler between scenes in which famous people sing songs from the past 30 years sans musical instruments.
Of course, it made $185 million. One-hundred. Eighty-five. Million. Dollars. Only 11 movies earned more money in 2015 than Pitch Perfect 2, which is so bad it makes Pitch Perfect seem like it deserves an Oscar for Best Picture. There will be a third Pitch Perfect movie. Every sentence that precedes this makes no logical sense based on the content of this film. I’ve never felt more disconnected from young people in my life. I just the other day learned of a rapper who goes by the name Awkwafina and I swear to god that makes more sense than Pitch Perfect 2.
I’m going to deviate from the usual Millennial Review structure because the movie has zero structure and I’d like my thoughts to be at least somewhat organized. I have nine pages of notes that are loaded with question marks and exclamation points. If you have any questions, I’m sure I can’t answer them.
1. Cutaways to Barack and Michelle Obama watching The Bellas at the Kennedy Center! They are totally really there watching and this is not stock footage from some other event. Nope. I completely believe this performance is taking place in front of the Obamas because of these two shots, which may be the same shot twice but I can’t say for sure.
2. Like any good sequel, you open the movie almost identically to the first movie. Instead of Chloe puking, Fat Amy’s ass and vagina accidentally get exposed when she loses her balance high above the stage. When you make a sequel, you have to up the stakes, and implied ass/vagina at the Kennedy Center trumps puking at a college championship every time. Way to push the envelope.
3. Is there any worse movie crutch than a montage of real-life TV news people delivering fake reports about fictional characters? Has there ever been a movie which uses that device that’s been good? If so, we are talking a very low percentage. On what plane of reality is Jake Tapper talking about a college acappella singer’s ass and vagina on CNN?
4. John and Gail, for some reason, are doing play-by-play of an acapella event for the President of the United States of America. No, wait. They are doing a live podcast. In the first movie, Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins served a purpose by delivering exposition about an unknown world to many. There is no reason for them to be in the sequel. None. They say nothing funny. They say oddly offensive things that have no place, too. But I guess when you’re directing a movie (Elizabeth Banks), you can force yourself into it. But hey, why wouldn’t there be two people in their 40s dressing fancy to record podcasts about everything an all-female acapella group does? That makes a ton of sense.
5. Wait, why are John and Gail in this meeting at the college? They are telling The Bellas that they are banned from competing because of the ass/vagina thing, which, again, was a total accident. And now John and Gail are the heads of the national acappella board deciding the group’s fate? Is that what’s happening here? Was this their role in the first movie and I missed it? And why does an accidental vagina/ass showing result in a lifetime ban? What the hell is happening here?
6. Wait again, John and Gail have agreed to reinstate them (to what, I’m not sure, as they are on a victory tour) if they win at the world championships, which are way down the road. Remember in the first one when women never won the national championship? Well, no Americans have ever won at the worlds because everyone hates America. This is the most convoluted plot ever. They are all (very, very old) college seniors, and the victory tour is over, so by the time they win worlds many months later, they will be done with school anyway, right?
7. If The Bellas are three-time national champions, wouldn’t they have taken part in the world championships already? Or at least be aware of them? Why is everything about the worlds being explained to them like this is the first they are hearing of it? This is all within the first 10 minutes of this unnecessary movie that made more money than Ant-Man. How can the crime of an accidental crotch-flashing be so severe that they can’t partake in recreational singing events but they can still go to the worlds?
8. The dean (I guess) called The Bellas a “national disgrace” because of the accidental vagina/ass thing. A) No one within this nation cares about acappella and B) a set malfunction leading to exposed genitals is unfortunate but not disgraceful. Nothing makes sense.
9. Chloe is still in college! Wasn’t she a senior when everyone else joined in the last movie? This is absurd.
10. “I’ve intentionally failed Russian Lit three times!” Ah, that explains it. It seems the national acappella board of podcasters or whatever the hell those two are can restrict your victory tour but there are no eligibility restrictions for 30-year-olds that have been on a team for seven years. Sure. OK. HERE I AM SUSPENDING DISBELIEF.
11. Beca dated this Treblemaker dork for four years? Come on. I can only suspend so much disbelief.
12. Does this movie take place in Atlanta? I just saw Georgia license plates. This is when you’d use Google to find information if you cared about a movie, but I don’t so I didn’t.
13. “Where’s Copenhagen?” “I don’t know. I failed maps.” This is when you fully understand that the writer of this movie knew that no matter the words on the page, this movie was happening either way. “Just write the maps joke and get to the next scene where people sing. I’m gonna smoke a joint.”
14. Why, Keegan-Michael Key? Why are you in this? I hope you got at least $5 million to play a music producer who wears sunglasses indoors.
15. Ah, the new Bella’s last name is Junk. You know. Junk. Like what we call a dick and balls. This is comedy.
16. The Asian woman still talks so softly that you can’t hear her! LOL!
17. OK, finally, the baseball scene that ended the last movie is addressed. In the original, Bella throws her pitch and the credits roll but now we are 15 minutes into this movie and we find out she is still on a quest. She hasn’t given up her dream of throwing the perfect pitch, but now she’s interning at a music studio, and it’s clearly an attempt to meet famous people that can hook her up with a tryout for the Braves. I assume she didn’t make the college team. It’s unclear.
18. The Bellas are “scouting” to get ready for the worlds. Why? This is like golf where you’re not competing against someone. Dustin Johnson can’t devise a scheme to beat Phil Mickelson by watching him golf. I can’t express in strong enough terms how this movie makes zero sense. None. Also, it just so happens the defending world champions — a German team — is performing at a local car show.
19. I love the Germans! Can the movie be about them!?
20. Beca is sexually attracted to the lead female singer of Das … Das … whatever this group is called. Hey, that’s the wildling who let her white walker kids murder her at Hardhome! Honestly, like half the laughs in this movie are based on the idea that a German accent is funny. Also, the woman playing the German singer is Danish, so I guess there were no authentic Germans to cast in this role, huh? Thanks, Hollywood!
21. Ha. On IMDb, her name is Kommissar. I get it. “Das” and “Kommissar” are funny German words.
22. “Take my advice. Don’t try to beat us.” There had to be a miscommunication where all the actors were accidentally given the first draft of the script but no one realized it until it was too late.
23. Sriracha sauce is a hipster thing? Show me a word that has less meaning than hipster. You can’t.
24. It’s time for Beca to show she’s got music chops. She’s playing Simon and singing with Snoop Dogg. It makes sense because Snoop knows lots of sports people, and this is how Beca goes about getting on a mound in front of scouts. Spoiler alert: It works! Snoop hooks her up!
25. I like this Snoop/Kendrick Christmas song.
26. This movie is such a mish-mash of shit with useless montages sprinkled around the strange storylines. At this point, there has been a training montage, a pool party montage and a pillow fight montage. Just like the first movie, this one is also about 30 minutes too long. It’s confounding because about half the scenes aren’t necessary to the plot, if you can find it in your heart to believe there is one. People want to laugh and listen music. They don’t want love stories about fringe characters. But guess what? You’re getting two of them!
27. There is a scene in this movie that is dumbfounding. David Cross invites the world’s best acappella groups to his mansion basement to take part in a battle where the winners get a $42,000 gift card to Dave & Busters.
28. That is not a joke. That is a real scene.
29. One of the acappella groups is made up of Green Bay Packers.
30. I’m not kidding.
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