A sequel to a good film is always a tough act. Pitch Perfect 2 shows us this; it banks on a good melody, and yet, hits all the wrong notes.

There’s plenty of visual spectacle, cute Boov patois, and positive messages about friendship and courage. Director Tim Johnson surprisingly manages to create family-friendly entertainment within the alien invasion genre. However, the film stops short of mapping out really new territory, and also suffers from being too predictable.

Fury is a genre war film that rises above the generic, thanks to believable central performances that deliver its uncomfortably realistic content of battle carnage and moral ambiguities.