An Acapella Singer’s Review of the Pitch Perfect Movies

The Pitch Perfect series is an American musical comedy about a college student starting fresh at Barden University. She decides to join the Barden Bellas, an all-female acapella group, which ends up being a group of very interesting girls. Singing acapella means using no instruments and making all the noises with your mouth, very much like the Red Knotes here at BSM.

The music sung in the Pitch Perfect movies gets continuously less prevalent as the series continues. Barden Bellas is made up of 10 girls which is a very difficult sized group to sing hard songs, especially because they don’t have men for the vocal percussion and bass parts.

In Pitch Perfect 1, some songs include “Don’t Stop the Music” by Rihanna, “The Sign” by Ace of Base, “Titanium” by David Guetta, and “Price Tag” by Jessie J. These songs were sung acapella by all the actors in the movie themselves.

Throughout the first movie you are introduced to the females of the group who decide to take on those challenging parts, and they end up sounding outstanding and winning the acapella competition. These girls proved that being a group made of all women is possible and that they could succeed. Pitch Perfect 1 was a very impressive movie, and the vocals compared to the amount of songs sung were even more impressive.

When the Pitch Perfect 2 movie came out, the bar was set high from the first movie. People became anxious for the story of the Barden Bellas to continue. Unfortunately, everyone’s high expectations were not fulfilled. New, unnecessary characters were created by the directors.

Hailee Steinfeld was a new lead character added to the Barden Bellas group. Her character is a bit awkward and adds some uncomfortable situations to the movie, that are also very uncomfortable to watch. She comes into the movie as a legacy to the Bellas so she automatically makes it into the group. She writes a song called “Flashlight” which they end up singing at the Final Competition. Steinfeld’s voice in this movie isn’t as impressive as it was intended to be. The second movie was significantly worse than the first.

Pitch Perfect 3 ended up being a total disappointment. Not only was the plot impossible to follow, but the acapella parts (which the whole movie series is based on) were barely there. A very small amount of singing and especially acapella was in the third movie.

It was interesting to see how the movie series changed throughout the last few years. The acapella talent in the first one did improve a noticeable amount, and the vocals became stronger. The lead, Anna Kendrick, did become a more confident and impressive performer through the series along with some other main characters. Overall, the Pitch Perfect series were very impactful movie for acapella groups.