Pitch Perfect

'Bring It On' brought competitive cheerleading to our attention. 'Glee' brought competitive show choir to our attention. Now we learn about competitive a capella singing.
I never knew about that a capella singing extended that far beyond a barbershop quartet. 'Pitch Perfect' may follow the clichéd story of a group of underdogs who are trying win a highly competitive sport. But in this case it is full of fun and interesting characters that make is incredibly funny. Writer Kay Cannon with help from Mickey Rapkin's book has created a group of women who are quirky and interesting. These are characters that, through the power of laughter, you come to care about and really root for in their quest for success. I admit that not all of them are fun to be with but you can't have everything. Aubrey is the type of character who is so short sighted that you just want to get up on the screen and slap her silly. I'm surprised none of the other girls in the team didn't do it for me.
As this is a character based film, then it is all about the performances. Anna Kendrick walks a very fine line in this film. While she is obviously the lead, she runs the risk of being overshadowed by her more interesting co-stars. That does happen a little bit here. Anna plays the only 'normal' person in this bunch of 'wacky' characters. While she stands out by virtue of the fact that she is the lead. Her character is not quirky enough to make a big impact. Brittany Snow kind of plays the same character from 'Hairspray', the side kick to the bitch. As the bitch Anna Camp is very good but her character annoyed me a lot. Which I'm sure was the intention. I was pleased that as a producer Elizabeth Banks got to give herself a small role as one of the judges. She and he co-judge played by John Michael Higgins are hilarious. However, the movie is stolen by the Australian comedienne Rebel Wilson. I remember when I was in the USA and the trailer for this film would come on and the reaction Rebel would get, made me so proud to be an Aussie. Rebel's witty one liners are what makes this film so funny. This is truly a star making turn and we are sure to see more of Rebel in the future.
A cut above the normal 'misfits make good' movies that you see all the time. It has hilarious characters and a breakthrough performance that makes the film well worth seeing.