Pitch Perfect 3 Review

Beca (Anna Kendrick), Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), Chloe (Brittany Snow) and Aubrey (Anna Camp) are eager to be invited to a Bella reunion but are quickly made aware the new class of Bellas (led by Hailee Steinfeld) invited them to watch and not sing. Beca (Anna Kendrick) is working as a music producer, and straining to keep inferior clients like rapper Pimp-Lo (Moises Arias) happy. But after one of their traditional "riff-offs", the ladies find themselves outclassed by the more seasoned acts.

Final film: 'I can really through down, ' Rebel comedically boasted.

The second film was an nearly entirely retread of the first, as is the latest installment, "Pitch Perfect 3", with an added sense of desperation to try and mix things up. John Lithgow's role in all this truly out of place and flat-out bad.

Thankfully, Pitch Perfect 3 is mercifully short as it goes through the motions.

Not to be forgiven or forgotten: the idiotic, sexist, satirical commentary by Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins, whose attempts at documenting this final tour are doomed to failure. Outside of the music, there's still plenty of PG-13 level humor - mostly from the self-deprecating Wilson - but gratefully, the painful a cappella puns have been nearly completely removed from the script.

Breaking away from a formula to do something different is all well and good, especially considering that we are on Pitch Perfect 3, but taking a franchise about a cappella singing competitions and turning it into spy espionage (someone get masterful video game director Hideo Kojima on the line and throw out the idea for Metal Gear Fat Amy) featuring dirtbag criminal fathers isn't the right direction.

At the end of the day, "Pitch Perfect 3" is targeted to its modest fanbase, who will enjoy every bit of it (admittedly, there were a great deal of laughs in my theater - did these people not see the first two?).