If the marketing material for Pitch Perfect 3 – the tag line is “Last Call, Pitches” – is to be believed, this is the swan song for a series that’s generated a sizable cult following. In this latest outing, the saga of the Barden Bellas ends not with a bang, but not exactly with a whimper. I have to damn Pitch Perfect 3 with a heaping helping of faint praise. It’s just okay. The movie is, thankfully, nothing like the complete disaster that Pitch Perfect 2 was, yet it never captures the elements that made the original so charming and so memorable.
This time around, the members of our favorite competitive collegiate a-cappella singing group are finding that post-college life, a.k.a. the real world, isn’t everything they had hoped it would be.