Movie Review: The Trilogy-Ending "Pitch Perfect 3" Still Has Some "Cheap Thrills" Going for It

If Pitch Perfect 1 was eager-to-please, Pitch Perfect 3 is the film equivalent of the DNGAF hashtag. Franchises grow up so fast.

What do you need Pitch Perfect 3 to be? A loose collection of jokes, strung together by spirited a cappella renditions of pop hits from the past six to 18 months?

Well, it clears that bar, if few others.

Do you simply need to know the series is out there in the universe, proceeding to provide steady and generous pay checks to Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and their co-stars, including Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins (who return as snarky commentators)? You can sleep easy, without also needing to actually see the thing.

Perhaps you need Pitch Perfect 3 to build upon its two predecessors and elevate the franchise to heights not yet seen, making it the Return of the King of perky teen comedies. Honestly, I would recommend lowering that particular expectation.

You may be shocked and alarmed to hear Pitch Perfect 3, the closing instalment of a trilogy built on the shaky foundation of a cappella battles, struggles to justify its existence.

Incoming director Trish Sie (replacing Banks, now busy on a Charlie’s Angels reboot) has her choreographic strengths, coming from a background of OK Go music videos and Step Up: All In. Otherwise, Pitch Perfect 3 is on cruise control, powered solely by its stars’ charm. For many, that’ll be enough. For the rest: I hope you like instrument-free Sia covers!

The plot—to give it a generous description—sputters into action when Kendrick’s Beca quits her unsatisfying music producing job (a job she coveted so desperately in the last picture—or, as desperately as Kendrick could convey while clearly not wanting to be in the film at all). At a reunion with her singing buddies, the Bellas, they all reveal a desire for one last musical fling, and Anna Camp’s Aubrey reveals her dad can get them on a USO tour, to perform for the troops and, inexplicably, also audition for DJ Khaled’s support slot. (As Brittany Snow’s Chloe utters under her breath, “There’s always a competition.”)

Off they go, joined once again by Wilson’s calamitous Fat Amy and Hailee Steinfeld’s Emily Junk, to recapture former glories and feed the unquenchable thirst of the content monster that demands they sing for our fleeting delight. This time, the Bellas regularly acknowledge our existence with quips dripping in sarcasm. On no less than two occasions, characters stare directly into the camera. They're no longer pretending this isn’t a movie.

There's something liberating to Pitch Perfect 3’s self-reflexive nihilism: no sincere moment goes by without being undercut; every chunky bit of exposition is delivered with a knowing shrug; even the picture's outlandish, Taken-inspired climax is brushed aside as a joke. The credits reveal a screenplay by 30 Rock's Kay Cannon (who penned the first two) and Mike White (School of Rock). In lieu of writing an innovative sequel, they've gone self-destructive. It doesn't make Pitch Perfect 3 an arthouse experiment, but it keeps the saga from going stale (or, at least going staler) for precisely 93 more minutes.

DJ Khaled plays himself, and it’s the most committed performance seen this side of Jim Carrey's descent into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon. He delivers catch phrases, exudes blessings, and appears delighted to be involved. Is Oscar eligibility still open? Not seeking an Academy Award is John Lithgow as Fat Amy's scheming dad, armed with an Australian accent that truly needs to be heard to be believed. Is this the reason he agreed to join Mel Gibson in Daddy's Home 2: to mimic his accent as a means of mocking him mercilessly? This might be the only acceptable explanation; choose wisely John.

The rest of the always-game cast—especially the perpetually underrated Camp and Snow—remain quite winning. Kendrick's slightly more enthused to be here this time around. (Not DJ Khaled-level enthused, obviously.) However, Pitch Perfect 3 does suffer from an absence of the male stars from the previous flicks: Ben Platt (now a Tony winner, thanks to Dear Evan Hanson) and Adam Devine (who is being Adam Devine, but just elsewhere, I guess). It's not that we really need dude counterparts for the talented and varied female actors to bounce off; the problem is they've been replaced with unequal suitors. I would find the new actors’ names on IMDB, if I could remember what their characters were called or looked like.

A bunch of ultra-polished, ear-shattering covers of '90s R&B hits-full of "um bah bahs” usually causes blood to naturally pool in my auditory canal. Here, it somehow has its appeal. The performers seem like they're having so much fun when harmonising, and now, look so much like they don't care what we think either. It took them three films to go from unbridled "love me" exuberance to basically the a cappella equivalent of negging. And it works, this one last time.

3/5

In cinemas 1 January 2018. Rated M for sexual references.

Photo: Universal