Alvin and the Chipmunks

Whenever a specific fad makes an impact on pop culture, many fail to realize just how little they actually offer outside of junk-food entertainment, and one such example was with Alvin and the Chipmunks. Originally starting off as a virtual band in 1958 by Ross Bagdasarian, who used sped-up recordings of his own music, mainly his single ”Witch Doctor”, the Chipmunks grew to become one of the most successful children’s artists of all time, with multiple number one hits, several Grammy wins and a franchise that expanded into cartoons and films. While perfectly harmless for what they were, it’s hard to ignore how their mere existence came about from such a simple tweak of altering pre-made music to sound higher pitch, and that they aren’t a brand that is open for a lot of variety. This was showcased quite clearly when they hit their next biggest patch of fame with the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie franchise, with the first being released in 2007. After a fire truck chops down their tree, three talking chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore (voiced by Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney) find a new home in the house of struggling songwriter Dave Seville (played by Jason Lee). After failing to impress his boss, Ian (played by David Cross), Dave’s attitude towards these invasive creature turns from aggressive to opportunistic when he discovers that they can sing, giving him the idea of using them to make more music in exchange for letting them stay at his house. Once the chipmunks become a success, Ian wishes to expand the Chipmunk’s commercial appeal and slowly starts to manipulate the Chipmunks into hating Dave and convincing them to come live with him. With Dave slowly starting to form a sort of conscience after bonding with the Chipmunks and upon discovering that Ian plans to send the chipmunks nationwide tour, Dave needs to reunite with them in order to let them know what they mean to him. While critics were unimpressed with this film for its hypocritical story, lazy humor and rehashed plotline, Alvin and the Chipmunks was a huge hit at the box office and spawned several more sequels with seemingly minute quality. Though clearly a bad product and featuring very little in the way of unique entertaining kids’ material, there are few things that hold it back from being truly awful, just not good.

A common cliche around these kind of kid’s film centred around the music is how unabashed hypocritical they are in their portrayals. They constantly spout how being a corporate sell-out is a negative thing and people should be ashamed of partaking in that lifestyle, all the while creating a product that is doing that exact thing without any shame or subtly. It’s bad enough that this film is so blind to its own hypocrisy in the first place, but to make matters worse, it just makes everything incredibly uninteresting and generic. You can predict everything that’s going to happen in this movie, and whether the film is aware of it or not, it seems like it doesn’t care how recycled its story is as it believes that having three high-pitched cuddly characters at the forefront will distract people enough not to care (and considering how much money the film made, it more than likely did work). It’s not like there’s a lot of potential that can come from this idea to begin with, but there’s got to be something interested that can be done with three singing chipmunks than just the plot of the 2001 film Glitter. It’s a dated mess, it’s packed with lazy jokes that never get a laugh, it’s hard to get invested in any surrounding the characters, and the film is so inoffensive and so hypnotic with its premise and delivery, that it solely feels like a tool to sponge views from impressionable kids who are incapable of saying no. Its a failed direction job from Tim Hill, who has and will do far worse movies than this (he directed Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever),but this still is not any show of credibility. While the film is very lazily written and has too many lame jokes to count, there is occasional a decent line that comes out of the film sporadically, which comes across as a singular writer trying to save an un-fixable project.  This seemingly comes from the hand of Jon Vitti, who has worked on several great episodes of The Simpsons, as well as had his hand in properties like King of the Hill and The Critic, whilst the other two screenwriters, Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi mainly have writing credits for Nickelodeon shows and the 2000 film, Snow Day.

None of the characters stand out and only feel like stock archetypes you would for a movie of this type. While the cartoon didn’t give these four roles the most in-depth personalities, it established enough to work within a serialized manner, helped each Chipmunk stand apart from each other, and made a scenario where kids could be entertained while watching them while also being able to tell them apart. But even that feels like to much effort for this film, as the chipmunks are barely given distinguishable element so they all kind of do and say similar things, which isn’t as fun. Theodore is at least allowed to be the cute one, Simon barely feels like a nerdy egghead character, but his voice acting gets the part across enough, but weirdest of all, Alvin is surprisingly given no personality, which is strange as he always had the biggest one. His usually ego-centric scheming nature mixed with still containing a good heart allowed him to be a decent lead, yet all of that is removed for practically nothing, so it doesn’t represent the source material well or offer a situation where the characters can stand apart from each other. Dave is made to be very unlikeable in this film, coming across as incredibly dismissive and undeserving of owning these Chipmunks, despite the film desperately trying to force the audience to want that to occur. Jason Lee is also not very strong as the voice, being stuck with a monotone delivery that barely sounds invested in the slightest and with a gravely tone that makes his voice sound unbelievably horse. A good chunk of the actors feels like they’re just doing this film for a paycheck, but even with that mentality, some of the just barely sound like they care at all. Dave’s girlfriend played by Cameron Richardson is particularly bad in this, with a lifeless delivery, awkward phrasing and stuck with a character that has nothing to offer outside of ”’love interest”. The only one who gets out of the film unscathed is David Cross. Even though he’s stuck playing the typical business suit music executive, his performance is covered in passive aggressive undertones that results in a lot of entertainment moments that all come through his delivery and attitude. Even when a line isn’t that great, you can feel his dislike for the material to a level that turns it around to being funny again, and he will be the only person worth watching in this film for anyone over the age of seven.

While the idea of a making a chipmunk film as a live action/computer animated hybrid isn’t a great idea, it honestly could’ve gone a lot worse than the end results. While the effects for the Chipmunks aren’t amazing by any means, they are at least expressive, exist in the moment enough to be believable, and aren’t as poorly constructed as they would become later down the line (despite getting a lot more money, somehow less would get used on their effects). The company behind their effects was Rhythm and Hues Studios, who do have impressive showcases of their animal visuals effects with projects like Mouse Hunt, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Babe, but they also worked on movies like Scooby Doo and The Cat and the Hat, so it’s safe to say their quality is a bit all over the place. Even though they are very unrealistic, they are made to look very cute and appealing to look at, so they have that going for them. Most of the pop songs inserted just feel like they’re incorporated in just to sell on a record CD after the film’s release (which is exactly what happened). The musical score by Christopher Lennertz is way too overwhelmingly whimsical and childish to the point of annoyance, resulting in a lot of scenes that are injected with this irritating background music as a fake sense of escalating excitement.

Alvin and the Chipmunks may have been a hit with kids, but it’s only because they don’t know any better yet, and the filmmakers and studio behind the film are banking on that when selling this film It ranges from painfully boring, to unimaginably forced and dated, and while definitely not as offensive as their later ‘’Squealquels’’, it’s doesn’t excuse the film’s complete lack of caring and its clearly commercialized agenda. The acting is mostly flat, the story is lazy, the songs are pointless and clearly just for sales, and for a product that states how product over performance is bad, it sure is okay with shilling out something with that very mindset. It has a few cute scenes, a little giggle here and there, and David Cross is worth the watch just for his amazingly fun performance, but besides that, there is nothing here for kids that they couldn’t just get from a bumper sticker.