Why the hate?

This is going to be long, so I apologize, but I need to get this all out lol...

Obviously I'm in the minority here, but I liked PP2 far more than the first. The musical numbers and choreography are in a totally different league. There was actual character development and I found myself actually enjoying the story line in between the performances. I enjoyed the first one, obviously enough to watch the sequel, but I found myself wanting to skip to the performances. I was shocked to see the hate PP2 is getting on this board. I found myself genuinely laughing at some scenes. I thought the humor in PP was mostly sexual and in some spots down right cringe-worthy, aka the "don't let them penetrate us" scene. It made me awkwardly chuckle at best. I've never been a fan of sexual humor, so I preferred the more physical and politically incorrect humor in PP2. Personally I thought the intro scene was hilarious. I literally laughed out loud. I don't mind that they gave Fat Amy more screen time. Rebel Wilson has the best comedic chops of the group and besides, with Aubrey moving on, it would make more sense promoting one of the originals, and Fat Amy is just a good of fit as any. The Treblemakers were good in the first movie, but over all I feel like they played their part and it wasn't really necessary for them to have as big a role in the sequel, so I didn't mind them acting as more supporting characters this time around. At least they didn't pull a Miss Congeniality and have Jessie and Beca break up at the beginning and then pretend the Treblemakers never existed for the rest of the movie. Making the final showdown a three way rivalry would have been okay too, but it didn't really bother me either way.

My only complaint, was that the "original" song, wasn't as good as it could have been. It's good, just not finale worthy. I would have rather they incorporated it into the final performance rather than devote the whole last half to the song. The performance started off with such a bang, so it didn't fit as good as it could have. That being said, I loved how they brought back some of the original Bella's. I actually got goosebumps when they showed up, so that made up for it. As good as DSM was, I thought the Bella's deserved to win for their creativity.

I feel like sequels get such a bad rap all the time. People go into them already having a preconceived notion that it's not going to be as good, so they get judged so much more harshly. I'm not saying that's the case with everyone who disliked it. We all have different tastes, but I get the feeling that's definitely a factor a lot of the time. Sequels have to walk such a fine line. If it's too much like the original, then people complain that it's a rehash and unnecessary, but if it's too different, then people are upset and complain that it's lost the "heart" of the first one. I personally thought the first one was a tad over rated. Like I said, I liked it and I've seen it twice now and I'd definitely watch it again, but I found myself laughing and smiling way more in PP2 and I'm actually looking forward to PP3 :) I'm not sure where they are going to go with it, but I'm still interested to see.


Long story short: To me, neither movie was perfect. They both had flaws and I feel like a lot of the flaws people are complaining about in PP2 were in the original too. I feel like the musical numbers and the character development in PP2 make it just that one step up and to me the amount of bashing is unnecessary. I've definitely seen worse sequels than this.