All the way back in 2012, Pitch Perfect was an unexpected phenomenon.
Led by Anna Kendrick (coming off Up in the Air, Twilight and 50/50), Brittany Snow (John Tucker Must Die, Prom Night) and comedic X-factor Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids), this quirky group of collegiate acapella singers laaaaa'd and ahhhhh'd their way into our hearts. On a measly $17 million budget, Pitch Perfect went on to gross $113 million worldwide. Furthermore, it became an absolute monster in syndication, where teenage girls -- let's be real, most of us -- ate it up, time and time again.
In terms of plot, the original Pitch Perfect was nothing special. It was a pretty typical story of an "outcast" (Kendrick, playing Beca) finding purpose and acceptance with people she didn't initially expect to like. It was Fish Out of Water meets Coming of Age...with singing.
But director Jason Moore's film landed because of its energy, positivity, re-watchability and of course, the undeniable chemistry between its talented, young actresses. Like a hip musical in some ways, Pitch Perfect achieved cult status because of its fun, well-choreographed-and-sung acapella numbers.
So, Pitch Perfect 2 happened, and it wasn't half bad. With a moderately bumped $29 million budget, Elizabeth Banks' full-length directorial debut grossed a whopping $287 million worldwide. It was a hit which introduced Hailee Steinfeld's character, Emily, and a memorable cameo from Green Bay Packers' Pro Bowl linebacker Clay Matthews.
I would say Pitch Perfect is a 7.5 out of 10, and Pitch Perfect 2 is a 6. That's a respectable number for a shameless, money-hungry sequel.
And that brings us to the third film of this unexpected trilogy. Oh boy...
PITCH PERFECT 3
There was a potentially good movie here. Screenwriter Kay Cannon simply blew it. This is a failure of epic proportions.
You know, you can keep young characters interesting for quite a long time. They only stop being interesting when they get married, have kids and settle down in suburbia. Think about how much interest there was in single, twenty and thirtysomethings on Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Jersey Shore, Scrubs and New Girl. Of course, Seinfeld qualifies under that heading as well. On the big screen, there's [500] Days of Summer, Office Space, Garden State, The Devil Wears Prada, Good Will Hunting, Fight Club, Swingers and many, many more.
If Cannon and Universal Pictures wanted to keep this gravy train rolling, all they had to do was dive into the single, twentysomething lifestyle while sprinkling in some fun acapella songs. I mean, people are obviously invested in these characters, right? Over half a BILLION in cumulative worldwide gross?
Now, because this movie was so unbelievably terrible, the franchise is dead. Pitch Perfect 3 starts out well enough -- with Beca realizing her dream job wasn't what she thought it would be -- but it goes completely off the rails in less than 10 full minutes. I honestly don't even want to get into the plot -- but yeah, it involves explosions and John Lithgow kidnapping the entire group at one point. Just beyond dumb. The writing is so bad it causes my blood pressure to boil.
What Cannon should have done was focus on her most popular characters and bankable stars: Beca, Fat Amy (Wilson), Chloe (Snow), Aubrey (Anna Camp), Emily (Steinfeld), Jesse (Skylar Astin) and Bumper (the always-entertaining Adam Devine). Apparently the behind-the-scenes team wanted the girls to "move on," so Astin and Devine don't even appear in PP 3. Astin's chemistry with Kendrick is missed, as is Devine's general hilarity.
Cannon should have included both men and grounded the story, instead of letting it fly away to Never-Never Land.
Twentysomethings, recently out of college, encounter a number of roadblocks: Where to live? Who to live with? Where to work? Do I have enough money to pay for food? Do I have enough money to go out and have fun? Win an ex back? Pursue someone new? Live the good, single life? Who am I as a person? Where do I want to go?
But few of those interesting questions are posed, once Pitch Perfect 3 devolves into yet another acapella competition. My vision for the story would have had the girls singing acapella at karaoke bars when they went out, or alone as a group, as they sat around commiserating about the unexpected struggles of twentysomething life. Smaller scale, as opposed to another tired competition featuring gratuitous cameos that take away from the screen time for Beca, Fat Amy and Chloe.
Pitch Perfect 3 represents a major missed opportunity. What if it ended with a cliffhanger suggesting Beca and Jesse might get back together? Maybe then, we'd go back to see a fourth installment. We certainly won't after the real Pitch Perfect 3, which is an absolute bomb.
** JOHN FRASCELLA'S SCORE: 2 OUT OF 10 **
OCEAN'S 8
Similarly to Pitch Perfect 3, Ocean's 8 starts out well enough.
In an ode to Danny Ocean's (George Clooney) Eleven intro, Eight begins with Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) talking her way out of prison. With some nice comedic energy from Bullock, Debbie convinces the parole board that she's ready to live "the simple life."
Moments later, she's out and already lying, cheating, stealing and loving every second of it.
It's a fun, promising intro for Debbie, but it may also be the highlight of the entire film. Ocean's 8 isn't as downright awful as Pitch Perfect 3, but it drops the ball in a number of similar ways. While the cameos and plot tangents take screen time away from the key performers in Pitch Perfect 3, it's the machinations of the heist that steal screen time away from Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson and Awkwafina in Gary Ross' Ocean's 8.
What's the point of assembling some of the most famous and talented women in the world if you aren't going to utilize their unique talents?
Anne Hathaway (as faux movie star Daphne Kluger) and Helena Bonham Carter (as washed-up designer Rose Weil) squeeze the most out of their roles, while the rest of Ross' leading ladies are left fending for scraps in a heap of underwritten roles. We don't really care if Debbie's girls pull it off because the actresses display little-to-no chemistry. That's due in part to the casting, but primarily the overemphasis on the minutia of the heist. There's no denying the chemistry between Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon in their entries of the Ocean's franchise. We just don't see that between Bullock and Blanchett, here.
Eh, what can I say? There isn't really much else to add. Ocean's Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen are all far superior to Eight. We've all seen heist movies before; often times the job is just a MacGuffin, and Ross clearly lost sight of that here. Or maybe he never realized that at all.
We want to see Bullock, Blanchett, Hathaway and Bonham Carter share sizzling chemistry on the silver screen -- do we really care about a stolen necklace? This cast needed chemistry lessons from the girls of Pitch Perfect. Maybe if we took the best bits and pieces of Pitch Perfect 3 and Ocean's 8 and spliced them together, we'd end up with a half-decent movie.
** JOHN FRASCELLA'S SCORE: 4 OUT OF 10 **
We want to see Bullock, Blanchett, Hathaway and Bonham Carter share sizzling chemistry on the silver screen -- do we really care about a stolen necklace? This cast needed chemistry lessons from the girls of Pitch Perfect. Maybe if we took the best bits and pieces of Pitch Perfect 3 and Ocean's 8 and spliced them together, we'd end up with a half-decent movie.
** JOHN FRASCELLA'S SCORE: 4 OUT OF 10 **
13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI
Michael Bay loves to blow shit up. You'd think he'd be better at it by now.
The clunky filmmaker behind 76 Transformers movies ruined what could have been a very powerful film, here. The 2012 Benghazi attack was cowardly, intense and horrifying -- a skilled director like say, Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Spike Lee, Ridley Scott, Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg or Francis Ford Coppola (in a past life) could have crafted a contemporary war classic with this incredible material.
Instead, we get gunshots and explosions on top of gunshots and explosions -- and the camerawork isn't even coherent! Half the time we can't even tell what's going on.
If you're going to turn this incredible story into a pure action movie, the action better (at least) be clear and engaging. That's the bare minimum. With the political undertones and surrounding social situation, there was a richer and better story to extract, too.
The casting also fell short. I'm not buying John Krasinski as an action hero; I'm sorry. I don't care about the rousing success of A Quiet Place or the over-hyped Jack Ryan series on Amazon -- this guy is still Jim from The Office. Krasinski has quirky charm and boyish mannerisms, making him much more at home on The Office or in Promised Land, Away We Go or It's Complicated. And Krasinski wrote Promised Land with Matt Damon, so he's already shown his hand -- he knows the types of roles he should be playing. But the general public is easily fooled, so Krasinski continues to reinvent himself in the prime of his acting career.
On the bright side, James Badge Dale (as "Rone" Woods) is right at home in 13 Hours. His character seems lived in, and this is the second time JBD has impressed me in a role that is drastically different from his understated turn in The Departed. "Rone" knows the ropes in Benghazi, and we root for him 'till the end.
Others, like David Denman ("Boon" Benton), Max Martini ("Oz" Geist) and Demetrius Gross (Dave Ubben) look the part, but Martini overacts his role from start to finish. Denman, calm and collected, fares much better. This is a mixed bag of a cast.
In the end, I would have liked to see a better-developed story, richer characters and cleaner action sequences. Spielberg, Bigelow and Gibson are particularly adept on the battle field. Bay is adept at, well...uncontrolled and unclear chaos, I guess.
However, the actual, real-life story of the Benghazi attack is more interesting than the flimsy fiction of both Pitch Perfect 3 and Ocean's 8. 13 Hours is -- barely -- a notch above.
** JOHN FRASCELLA'S SCORE: 5 OUT OF 10 **
My up-to-date review rankings:
Instead, we get gunshots and explosions on top of gunshots and explosions -- and the camerawork isn't even coherent! Half the time we can't even tell what's going on.
If you're going to turn this incredible story into a pure action movie, the action better (at least) be clear and engaging. That's the bare minimum. With the political undertones and surrounding social situation, there was a richer and better story to extract, too.
The casting also fell short. I'm not buying John Krasinski as an action hero; I'm sorry. I don't care about the rousing success of A Quiet Place or the over-hyped Jack Ryan series on Amazon -- this guy is still Jim from The Office. Krasinski has quirky charm and boyish mannerisms, making him much more at home on The Office or in Promised Land, Away We Go or It's Complicated. And Krasinski wrote Promised Land with Matt Damon, so he's already shown his hand -- he knows the types of roles he should be playing. But the general public is easily fooled, so Krasinski continues to reinvent himself in the prime of his acting career.
On the bright side, James Badge Dale (as "Rone" Woods) is right at home in 13 Hours. His character seems lived in, and this is the second time JBD has impressed me in a role that is drastically different from his understated turn in The Departed. "Rone" knows the ropes in Benghazi, and we root for him 'till the end.
Others, like David Denman ("Boon" Benton), Max Martini ("Oz" Geist) and Demetrius Gross (Dave Ubben) look the part, but Martini overacts his role from start to finish. Denman, calm and collected, fares much better. This is a mixed bag of a cast.
In the end, I would have liked to see a better-developed story, richer characters and cleaner action sequences. Spielberg, Bigelow and Gibson are particularly adept on the battle field. Bay is adept at, well...uncontrolled and unclear chaos, I guess.
However, the actual, real-life story of the Benghazi attack is more interesting than the flimsy fiction of both Pitch Perfect 3 and Ocean's 8. 13 Hours is -- barely -- a notch above.
** JOHN FRASCELLA'S SCORE: 5 OUT OF 10 **
My up-to-date review rankings:
1. Up in the Air (9.5/10)
2. Steve Jobs (9.5/10)
3. Margin Call (9/10)
4. Lady Bird (9/10)
5. Stay (9/10)
6. Gone Girl (9/10)
7. Nocturnal Animals (9/10)
8. 45 Years (9/10)
9. The Edge of Seventeen (9/10)
10. Tape (9/10)
11. A Perfect Murder (9/10)
2. Steve Jobs (9.5/10)
3. Margin Call (9/10)
4. Lady Bird (9/10)
5. Stay (9/10)
6. Gone Girl (9/10)
7. Nocturnal Animals (9/10)
8. 45 Years (9/10)
9. The Edge of Seventeen (9/10)
10. Tape (9/10)
11. A Perfect Murder (9/10)
14. Split (8.5/10)
15. Bad Moms (8.5/10)
16. Basquiat (8.5/10)
25. 10 Cloverfield Lane (7/10)
26. Loving (7/10) - No review available
27. The Shape of Water (6/10) - discussed in this review
28. The Boy (6/10) - No review available
26. Loving (7/10) - No review available
27. The Shape of Water (6/10) - discussed in this review
28. The Boy (6/10) - No review available
29. Joy (5.5/10)
30. La La Land (5.5/10)
31. The Visit (5/10) - discussed in this review
32. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (5/10)
33. Molly's Game (5/10)
34. Set It Up (5/10)
35. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (4.5/10) - No review available
36. Brooklyn (4.5/10) - discussed in this review, and this review
37. Ocean's 8 (4/10)
38. Why Him? (3.5/10) - No review available
39. The Program (3/10)
40. Pitch Perfect 3 (2/10)
41. Shut In (2/10) - No review available
42. Premonition (2/10) - No review available
31. The Visit (5/10) - discussed in this review
32. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (5/10)
33. Molly's Game (5/10)
34. Set It Up (5/10)
35. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (4.5/10) - No review available
36. Brooklyn (4.5/10) - discussed in this review, and this review
37. Ocean's 8 (4/10)
38. Why Him? (3.5/10) - No review available
39. The Program (3/10)
40. Pitch Perfect 3 (2/10)
41. Shut In (2/10) - No review available
42. Premonition (2/10) - No review available
43. Rings (1.5/10)
44. Mother's Day (1.5/10)
44. Mother's Day (1.5/10)
Reviews to Come...
Eastern Promises
A Quiet Place
Life of Pi
Wind River
Hell or High Water
A Quiet Place
Life of Pi
Wind River
Hell or High Water
Sunshine Cleaning
Zero Dark Thirty
The Box
Annabelle: Creation
The Conjuring 2
Baby Driver
Body of Lies
The Box
Annabelle: Creation
The Conjuring 2
Baby Driver
Body of Lies
Untraceable
The Wonder Boys
Jackie Brown
Mean Streets
Nerve
The Hateful Eight
The Seven Five
How to Be Single
Deadpool
Ratatouille
The Spectacular Now
The Purge: Election Year
And more...
The Purge: Election Year
And more...
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