Starring: Jason Lee, David Cross, Cameron Richardson, Justin Long, Jesse McCartney, Matthew Gray Gubler

Directed by: Tim Hill

Twentieth Century Fox

The Official Site of Alvin and the Chipmunks

Discuss Alvin and the Chipmunks on the boards!

I didn’t think we needed an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. We didn’t really need a Garfield movie and we got two of those. At least that was a good cartoon. But The Chipmunks never struck me as major motion picture material. Dressing up animals in clothes just seems obnoxious. So when the teaser trailer was released last summer I was less than shocked that the first impression was a bad one. Awkwardly rendered cartoon chipmunks, TV’s white trash spokesman gone clean-cut/family-friendly and yes, one chipmunk eating another’s poop. But some how the update of this 50-year-old institution managed to be one of the biggest hits of the holiday season!

Ultimately, the movie did so well because kids rule the box office and when it comes down to it, these Chipmunks are adorable. Like little kids that can get into the walls or use a remote control car as an actual vehicle, the movie takes advantage of all the gags, laughs, and cuteness that Alvin, Simon and Theodore have to offer. Including of course, the moment in trailer two that sold this movie for me, and millions of other people - Theodore sleeping on Dave’s head. Pretty much anything is more appealing than Alvin putting Theodore’s droppings in his mouth (something that doesn’t actually happen that way in the movie. Go to the “About the Comic� section below to find out why), but even the cutesiest of cute in any sugar sweet animated romp could only tie this sweet moment. Our hearts can only feel so much!

The movie follows the hard luck journey of these orphaned critters from the forests of California, where their house is cut down for decoration in the lobby of a the record company that Dave Seville (My Name is Earl’s Jason Lee) is desperate to sell a song to. The Chipmunks hitch a ride back to Dave’s place where they cause trouble, are found and eventually barter out a deal where they can stay with Dave, if they agree to use their talented voices to help sell his songs. It’s not exactly a magical, fairytale meeting. It’s not even a logical man-goes-to-pet-store-and-buys-pets meeting that would have made more sense and shaved 20 minutes off the movie, but it does introduce a larger theme of family. Something that Dave is reluctant to enter into, even though it’s clear the three chipmunk kids really need it. It’s in this theme where the movie finds its heart. Family keeps this from being more of the same from.

Alvin and the Chipmunks features a blend of animated characters in a real world setting. Just like Scooby Doo, Garfield and the sequels to both. And just like all four movies… Chipmunks doesn’t quite work. The animation is still about 5 years away from being seamlessly perfect. It never truly looks natural, but I found that after a few scenes the bug-eyed monstrosities of nature did manage to find their comfort zone in the real-world surroundings. If you’re hung up on it though, you’re in for a long night. This is a talking animal movie. Try to let yourself go a little.

The music is just… not good. We see the return of the classic Chipmunk Christmas Song which is done very traditionally, but from there on out it’s just popular songs with brand new beats sung in high pitched squeals. There’s no way that these songs, performed this way, would ever be popular unless they were actually performed by magic vermin. Admit it. If a group of real chipmunks suddenly burst on the scene singing top 40, you’d pick up the single. Hell, you’d check it out on youtube a couple of times at least. You sure watched that dramatic prairie dog enough times.

Throughout the movie I couldn’t help but wonder, “What would Brody (Lee’s rough-around-the-edges comic geek from the Kevin Smith movie Mallrats) think about an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie?� Even worse, “What would he think about a 38-yeart-old version of himself playing their straight man?� Dave the downer played by the guy that stink-palmed a guy right into diphtheria and orchestrated an underage sex show on live TV.

Forget the reaction of fictional personas, do you think the 20-year-old, pro skate boarder version of Lee with his own line of sneakers and a Sonic Youth music video would have ever imagined he’d make white trash fashionable on “must see TV� and fill 2007 with talking animal pictures? (Last August’s Underdog, voiced by Lee, didn’t find quite the same audience that Alvin did.) What I‘m getting at is that – it feels like a weird fit. Lee’s fan base, which admittedly has taken on more soccer moms and grandparents than when he first burst on the scene playing second fiddle for Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky) and dropping F-bombs for Kevin Smith (Chasing Amy), don’t know how to handle him as the straight-laced every man in safe family friendly fare.

He’s fine in the role, but like the rest of the cast, he’s nothing more than a placeholder so that the Chipmunks can do their thing. Even David Cross, who can normally find some nugget of humor in the worst of settings (Scary movie 2, Men in Back 2), struggles here to make his deceitful record executive memorable.

But like I said, it doesn’t matter; the movie is all about the Chipmunks and their wild adventure. The cool cast that would’ve had teenage Joe getting ready to split his pants with laughter is now just set dressing to the technology that will have little kids laughing just as hard. The good news though is that there’s just as that you’ll find more than a few reasons to chuckle right along with them at this unexpected surprise of a movie that endd the year on the perfect note.

Alvin and the Chipmunks is a good movie that made a lousy first impression but had the final laugh where it counts. In the box office. Now we need to prepare ourselves for the sequel that will hopefully bring more laughs, better songs, and probably another indie icon of our youth playing against type and collecting so fat Chipmunk cash.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10 - I caught Alvin and the Chipmunks back last month when my 3-year-old niece Rosa was in the city visiting Yeo and I. I have a feeling that I would’ve enjoyed the movie either way, but the experience was definitely heightened every time I looked over and saw Rosa let out a roar of laughter, with one hand waving in the air and the other elbow deep in a bucket of popcorn. Every movie should be watched with such good company. Couldn’t convince her mother to let me take her to AVP:R though.

Great for the kid’s but not so much for me. The cute moments will undoubtedly wear thin with each viewing eventually leaving nothing more than a DVD in your collection that solely exists for distracting the young people in your life. And even they’ll be asking for Shrek after three times through.

No, if I’m giving my DVD dollars to any animated rodent this year it’s got to be to Master Splinter and his heroes on the half shell from TMNT. The Turtles came back big this year with a new CGI style and made one of the most exciting adventures (animated or not) of 2007. Nothing in TMNT comes close to rivaling Theodore’s cuteness but Raph and Leo throwing down on the rain soaked rooftops of the city will always win out in long-term watchability.

Josie and the Pussycats - Same movie. Hotter band.

This 2001 live action satire of the Hanna-Barbara cartoon follows the same path as Alvin and the Chipmunks pushing friendship instead of family as its key message. Where the industry breaks apart The Chipmunks as a family it tears apart the Pussycats as friends and they have to look through the lies to find out why their band worked so well in the first place.

Josie boasts better tunes, the most legendary fake boy band ever (“Du Jour means love�) and a group of gals a lot easier to look at than rats in bright sweaters, but didn’t come nearly as close to finding an audience as Alvin and the gang were able to this holiday season. Even indie cred from Parker Posey and Alan Cumming couldn’t give Josie life on DVD and the film faded into obscurity. I personally think the movie is a lot of fun and secretly hope that a Josie revolution will rise up and show similar support. It would seem though that a walking, talking chipmunk is more likely to happen first.

After the big turn out over the holidays, I wanted to address it in the comic and make a small call back to the teaser that turned so many people off all those months ago. But as I hinted at in the review, the infamous scene where Alvin eats Theodore’s dump never actually happens! …Simon does it. Alvin is off taking a bath in the dishwasher when the act takes places and as disgusting and off putting as I originally found the scene, I found that this bait and switch diffused it for me. If anything I was just confused why Alvin wasn’t there and why they would adjust it for the trailers at all. The questions running through my head distracted me to the poi t where I forgot how gross it was to begin with, and before you knew it, they were on to the next gag. Good for them. And us.

Not much to report. I had a grand holiday; I hope you all did as well. I got a couple of HUGE projects off of my plate and I’m enormously excited about jumping back into my regular routine of comics including a closer look at my favorite movies of 2007! The year ended up nicely and I’m certainly not done tossing out comics for it.

In the meanwhile tune in tonight to listen to Tom, Gordon and I discuss a couple of those films including Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood. See you soon!