A movie worth singing about

(6) PITCH PERFECT, with Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow and Rebel Wilson. Directed by Jason Moore. (Bridge, Walmer Park): IT isn’t hard to imagine the pitch meeting for the Baton Rouge-shot comedy Pitch Perfect. It probably went something like: “Imagine Step-Up meets Glee meets The Bad News Bears – and set the whole shooting match in the world of collegiate a cappella competitions.”

Likewise, it isn’t hard to imagine that the idea initially was met with at least a little skepticism because there’s really no reason to expect that Pitch Perfect would work as well as it does.

It’s formulaic, it’s predictable, it’s hokey, and it’s so white-bread that not only does it refer to itself as “organised nerd singing” but the straight-laced Anna Kendrick is what passes in the film for an edgy, alt-music campus rebel. But it also is surprisingly fun, built around a solid cast, unexpected humour and a pop-infused a cappella soundtrack that will have you tapping your feet, no matter how hard you resist.

The music, of course, is the engine that makes the whole exercise go, tapping into a genre-spanning collection of tunes, but every bit as important to the film’s success is its unexpected humour, which flirts with raunchy but stops juuuust short of crossing any lines that would have earned it an R rating.

Granted, director Jason Moore plays it safe, keeping things fairly straightforward and inside-the-box.

But like good a cappella performances, Pitch Perfect overcomes any individual stumbles to become the sum of all of its parts, and that’s something worth singing about. © Mike Scott