I just saw Pitch Perfect 2 the other night, and it got me to thinking about something. I actually enjoyed the film a lot more than I anticipated I would. It was very funny and the music and dance numbers were well-performed and well-choreographed. All in all it was a very entertaining film, and really all we can fairly ask of most films is for them to entertain us. From that perspective, Pitch Perfect 2 hit the mark, and it hit it much more effectively than its predecessor, which I couldn’t get through.

For those of us, however, that do require some kind of story or narrative to accompany that entertainment value, Pitch Perfect 2 does offer a thin and shallow story that helps to move the plot along and gets us from one dance/musical number to the next. And that’s when it hit me. Actually, this idea hit me a few months ago when I was watching An American in Paris for my Best Picture blog posts, but it was confirmed to me last night while watching Pitch Perfect 2. In that blog post, I likened An American in Paris to modern-day action flicks where the story’s only purpose is to get us from one action sequence to the next. I felt that An American in Paris had a very weak story that was really nothing more than filler between those musical numbers. I had the same feeling last night about Pitch Perfect 2. Although I felt it had a relatively engaging story, and they even layered it with an uncomplicated subplot, it really seemed like the storyline was there to fill the space between musical numbers.

The fact that I now had two musicals to compare to the action movie led me to this confirmation: Action movies and musicals generally follow the same formula. They quite often have very simple storylines and the plot mainly serves to get us from one musical number/action sequence to the next. What’s more is that it’s necessary for these films to have relatively simple storylines because there isn’t time to explain a complicated story when you’re blowing stuff up, chasing cars through traffic, or putting on a show or dancing in the street.

Of course there are exceptions. Most of the great musicals like The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, etc. used the songs to progress the story or to reveal issues about the characters. Likewise, many of the great action adventure films like Braveheart, Raiders of the Lost Ark, most recently Mad Max: Fury Road use the action sequences to progress the narrative as well. In the best action film, the action sequences don’t just happen in a vacuum. They’re a necessary component to the progression of the narrative.

However in many musicals and action films alike, the characters break into song for no particular reason or there’s some sort of fight or chase scene that might make us leap from our collective seats, but also takes us right out of the story.

Once I’m done with blogging about the Best Picture winners, I’m going to study this a little more in depth, but I’d be willing to theorize that the pacing to musicals is the same as the pacing to action films. That is to say that there is a set amount of time within the formula that you should have between action sequences and musical numbers. What is it? Ten minutes? Fifteen minutes? I’m not sure, but I’d be willing to bet that if you watched a series of musicals and then a series of action films, you would discover that their patterns and structure and plot devices are merely on different sides of the same coin.