Pitch Perfect 2 (7.5/10)

I have a bit of mixed feelings about this sequel to the 2012 original, which I recently re-watched. By recently, I mean half an hour ago.

While the original centred around Anna Kendrick's character, her love life and relationship with her father as well as the Bellas; this time around she has taken a gigantic step back from the limelight. She was almost just phoning it in and watching her onscreen I couldn't help but feel that her talent was wasted in this movie.

She had no character development and she seemed to have made herself smaller compared to everyone else.

In this case, a lot more of the other cast were allowed to shine. Most notably, Brittany Snow who has taken over the leader role, both in the story and in carrying the movie. And Snow really stepped up to the challenge. I thought she almost single-handedly moved the movie forward.

I didn't like Rebel Wilson's character in the first one but she really grew on me here. That and also the dialogue from Kay Canon was way better this time - maybe because there was no source material to refer to. The one-liners especially written for Wilson, John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks were the most hilarious.

Banks in her full-length feature directorial debut hit most of the notes in most of the right places. Her comedic chops helped in bringing out the humour in all of the funny scenes. It was only when the story got to the serious bits that didn't really work and seemed like a throw-away.

One of the best section here was the riff-off which was far more superior than the one created for the original (another credit to Canon). And we also had David Cross acting as host and he also made the scene better. Strangely though, he's not credited?

Minor SPOILERS can be found in the next three paragraphs.

What I could have done without was the relationship development between Wilson and Adam DeVine because it felt forced and it never got interesting for me.

The addition of Hailee Steinfeld to add some youthful spunk worked. Her character's love interest with Ben Platt never had enough dues and this was the one I was more interested in.

Keegan Michael Key stole every scene he's on. And he swallowed up Kendrick whole. He was one of the best parts of this entire movie. I would love to see a spin-off of his character.

Overall, I do prefer the sequel over the original because of the writing and the one-liners. They worked better here the second time around.