Movie Muser

Big Game will not be winning the award ‘Most Sensible Movie Of The Year’. Indeed it reaches Fast & Furious levels of preposterousness, where you either have to submit to its inherent silliness or alternatively break down in tears and decry the state of modern entertainment. Personally I went for the former.

The US President (Samuel L. Jackson) is flying to some important talks when an evil terrorist (played by an actor who looks the dictionary definition of ‘stereotypical foreign bad guy’) blows Air Force One out of the sky. The Pres is put in an escape capsule and dropped into the middle of the remote Finnish wilderness.

That’s not the end of his problems, as it turns out his Head Of Security (Ray Stevenson) is evil too and along with the terrorist is determined to kill the President before anyone can find and rescue him. Luckily for the First Man, he plummets to earth near a teenage boy called Oskari (Onni Tommila), who’s been sent into the forest to kill something, which will prove what sort of man he will be (he come it’s a very remote old-fashioned Finnish village, where apparently nobody knows what the American President looks like, but where their children speak excellent English).

After some initial suspicion, Oskar begins to help the President to get out of the woods alive – something easier said than done.

Big Game is an odd movie. In the special features even those who made it don’t seem entirely sure what they’ve created, with the director insisting that despite having a teenage lead, this is not a family movie (he says it’s like Die Hard), while one of the producers says it’s like a 1980s Amblin movie. To be honest it’s more like the latter – an 80s family film if it was written by the Tea Party (which isn’t as bad as it sounds, because in many other respects it’s not a family film at all, but there are certainly some odd echoes).

It never quite finds a sustained tone and Samuel L. Jackson spends most the movie seeming bemused by what the hell he’s supposed to be doing. Indeed, it’s really the cast and some decent special features that are the only things that separate this from the sort of straight-to-DVD action that gets released on a weekly basis.

The film is oddly fun though, getting increasingly ridiculous as it goes along. By the 50th time something happens that would absolutely, definitely kill all involved, you just sort of have to go with it and put a slightly unbelieving expression on your face. I certainly won’t be adding it to my list of the greatest movies ever, and I almost certainly will never watch it again, but partly due to its odd innocence and earnestness it wasn’t half as bad as it could easily have been.

Overall Verdict: An impressively ridiculous but oddly entertaining movie, which almost beats you into submission with its farcically over the top action. In the end, it’s more fun that it has any right to be.

Special Features:
Cast & Crew Interviews

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

The Pitch Perfect movies are proof positive that despite many people arguments to the contrary, originality isn’t the key to an entertaining film. Indeed, both films are just about as clichéd as it’s possible to get story-wise, following tried and tested formulas for this sort of film. However, despite that – or actually arguably partly because of the oddly comforting nature of that – they are huge amounts of fun.

This time around things have moved on a few years and rather than being a freshman, Beca (Anna Kendrick) is now getting ready to graduate and thinking about the future. Her a cappella group, The Barden Bellas, are now three time national champions, until disaster strikes when ‘Fat’ Amy (Rebel Wilson) suffers a major wardrobe malfunction while performing for the President, which results in the group’s tour being cancelled and threatened with never being able to compete again.

However, nobody can prevent them performing at the World A Cappella Championships, which becomes their only shot at redemption, even though nobody thinks they stand a chance. To succeed they’ll need to find their sound once more and beat the hot favourite, a German group called Das Sound Machine.

In terms of plot, there certainly isn’t a surprise around every corner – indeed, it’s not that different to the plot of the first movie – but the film doesn’t need it as it oozes charm, humour and camaraderie. The last of those is the thing that really helps hold it together, with a group of diverse women who genuinely care about one another, working together to be the best they can be.

The main addition to the cast is Hailee Steinfeld as a new Bella. It becomes clear that’s she’s mainly there to have the franchise handed to her, although after Pitch Perfect 2 became a huge hit, Kendrick and Wilson are returning for Part 3 in 2017, so Steinfeld won’t get to completely take over quite yet.

There are a few things that don’t work, such as a subplot about Beca taking an internship with an asshole music producer. Initially it seems like it’ll be something a bit different and fun, but it doesn’t really go anywhere (at least nowhere that couldn’t have been easily handled without it) and begins to feel as if it’s stalling the rest of the film. Largely though it’s great fun, with Rebel Wilson on fine form as the wonderfully funny and carefree ‘Fat’ Amy, while jokes you might have thought would become stale second time around – such as Hana Mae Lee’s Lilly’s whispered weirdness – are still hilarious.

And of course there’s the music, which is fun and joyous. Admittedly there are a couple of musical numbers where it feels like the script has contorted itself immensely in order to include them, but even so they have great energy and drive. As with the first movie, the ending isn’t at all surprising but still manages to be incredibly uplifting, largely through a great use of music to shift (some would say manipulate) your emotions.

Unfortunately, the DVD doesn’t have a huge amount in the way of special features, although there is a gag reel and a couple of extended musical performances. It’s not too much of a hardship though, because as simple, musical entertainment, the movie is great fun.

Overall Verdict: Pitch Perfect 2 follows the adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, offering up a film that is remarkably similar to the first movie. In some circumstances that would be a bad thing, but here the filmmakers ensure all the best bits of Pitch Perfect are intact, resulting in a sweet, funny, life-affirming movie.

Special Features:
Extended Musical Sequences
Gag Reel

Reviewer: Tim Isaac