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ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED
Rating: ½
USA. 2011.
Director – Mike Mitchell, Screenplay – Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger, Based on the Characters Created by Ross Bagdasarian & Janice Karman, Producers – Ross Bagdasarian Jr & Janice Karman, Photography – Thomas E. Ackerman, Music – Mark Mothersbaugh, Animation Supervisor – Kevin Johnson, Visual Effects – Rhythm and Hues Studio (Supervisor – Douglas Hans Smith), Special Effects Supervisor – William ‘Bill’ Orr, Production Design – Richard Holland. Production Company – Fox 2000/Regency Enterprises/Bagdasarian Company/Dune Entertainment.
Cast:
Jason Lee (Dave Seville), David Cross (Ian Hawke), Jenny Slate (Zoe), Andy Buckley (Captain Corelli)
Voices:
Justin Long (Alvin), Matthew Gray Gubler (Simon), Jesse McCartney (Theodore), Christina Applegate (Brittany), Amy Poehler (Eleanor), Anna Faris (Jeanette), Alan Tudyk (Simone)
Plot: Dave takes the Chipmunks and the Chipettes on a holiday with him aboard a cruise liner. However, the chipmunks’ constant playfulness and fun-seeking causes chaos among the passengers and the captain threatens to put them off at the nearest port. Dave discovers that his old nemesis Ian is also aboard working as the ship’s mascot and is determined to obtain revenge by coming down on the Chipmunks for the slightest infraction of shipboard rules. Alvin attempts to fly a kite but this goes wrong and he, the Chipmunks and Chipettes are swept away to sea. In trying to help, Dave gets tangled up aboard a parasail and is swept away too, along with Ian. They all end up adrift on a desert island. As Dave and Ian search for them, the Chipmunks build tree huts and are befriended by a strange castaway Zoe. They also locate a lost treasure but everything is threatened by the imminent eruption of the island’s volcano.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked is the third of the films in the series that began with Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007), followed by Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009). These were based on the popular animated tv series Alvin and the Chipmunks (1983-90), which in turn was drawn from the hit recording phenomenon that began in 1959 – one based on the sole gimmick of having popular songs rerecorded at 45 rpm so that the singers came out in squeaky helium voices. The live-action films delivered the Chipmunks via CGI, where they seem to exist solely to fire off excruciating smartass one-liners, contemporary pop-culture gags and much freeform chaos aimed at the pre-school age.
It may well say how doomed the Western world is as a culture that such an inane, empty-headed premise as watching a bunch of cutsie, smartass talking animals with squeaky high-pitched voices has managed to be extended to fill three films, all of which have been modest box-office successes. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked reigns in as mildly less excruciating and painful than the previous two films. Under director Mike Mitchell, previously known for Deuce Bigelow, Male Giglolo (1999), Surviving Christmas (2004), Sky High (2005) and Shrek Forever After (2010), there is less of a focus on smartass one-liners. There is also less in the way of song numbers this time, as the plot’s focus is far more on mimicking the adventure story. That said, there is still a great deal in the way of the Chipmunks (and Chipettes) being cutsie in sequences that are intended as little more than the equivalent of mud pie fights or kids going crazy with waterguns – the Chipmunks causing chaos after squirting suntan oil on the ship’s deck so they can go skating on it; the Chipettes in a disco dancefloor showdown of styles with a trio of bitchy girls that look like they have stepped out of Jersey Shore (2009– ); the Chipmunks amok in the ship’s casino; the Chipmunks Tarzan-swinging or travelling on zip lines through the jungle of the island and so on.
The minor spin that Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked places on what has gone before in the other films is to throw the Chipmunks, Chipettes, Jason Lee’s Dave (and in a contrived addition David Cross’s Ian) onto a desert island. This seems solely for the purpose of offering a new venue for the usual malarkey. To this extent, the film appropriates the dramatic cliches of the desert island drama for its running time – a lost treasure; a volcano about to explode; fears of a monster lurking; a villain determined to get the treasure at all costs; a climactic scene taking place on a bridge over a ravine that is about to collapse. None of these are delivered in any interesting way – or even with any dramatics that generate the remotest shred of tension. The film’s wackiest addition is comedian Jenny Slate in a parody of Tom Hanks in Cast Away (2000) – imagine Hanks recast as a combination of a ditzy airhead and an Indiana Jones gone wrong, with beach ball companions having been given sinisterly twisted expressions on their drawn faces.
(Winner Worst Film in this site’s Worst Films of 2011 list).
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2011
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