‘Alvin’ offers a bit of mindless fun

The Movie Nut


 

 

“As long as Alvin is around,” Simon observes at one point, “we’ll always be in trouble.”

Three chipmunks making trouble—mixing mayhem, mischief and music—have created this family-friendly franchise: three prior movies that have earned over $1 billion at the worldwide box office. It was inevitable there would be a fourth.

If you’ve seen any of the others, you know to expect mindless, harmless fun in a live-action world where everyone takes computer-generated talking critters for granted.

Once again, the plot is simple and the acting overdone—but there’s nothing here to embarrass anyone. It has enough energy to keep parents and grandparents awake and enough slapstick to keep the very young kids engaged.

It’s all silly in a sometimes lazy way, but it also delivers sweet lifelessons in small doses. And these chaos-loving chipmunks are always just minutes from launching into another tail-shaking song.

Repetitive? You have no idea.

Alvin (voice: Justin Long) is the mischievous, self-appointed leader; Simon (voice: Matthew Gray Gubler) is thoughtful and observant; Theodore (voice: Jesse McCartney) is along for the ride. They’re brothers who have each other’s back.

“You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us,” Theodore insists— and Dave (Lee) is messing with their minds.

Dave, their human record producer and “dad,” has a new woman in his life. He’s seeing Samantha (Williams-Paisley), a doctor with a teenage son, Miles (Green), who’s a bully and a brat. When he first meets the chipmunks, he makes their lives miserable.

So when Dave decides to take Samantha to Miami on a business trip—and the chipmunks discover an engagement ring in his luggage—they fear the obvious: They’ve “lost” Dave to Samantha, and Miles will be their new step-brother. What could be worse?

Miles agrees. And so, together, they head to Miami to prevent the inevitable. Along the way, chaos ensues and they attract the attention of James (Tony Hale), a psychotic air marshal who spends the rest of the trip trying to catch them.

Although the movie delivers few laugh-out-loud moments, there is sweetness in small doses as the storyline deals lightly with abandonment issues, fear of blended families, sympathy for those who’ve lost a parent, and the longing to be loved. But it’s all done so subtly, the young kids in the audience may not even notice.

What will keep them watching are Alvin, Simon and Theodore finding every possible excuse to launch into singing and dancing— and getting everyone on their side.

Music does give the movie a sense of pace, but it nearly overwhelms every other aspect of the storyline. And every song has the same beat.

Director Becker seems more interested in watching big crowds line-dancing than in finding creative ways to help small critters prevent a marriage.

The movie comes with a twist, several back stories, and an unnecessary and underdeveloped subplot about

Dave producing the latest album by Ashley ( Thorne), the latest hot singer. Also underdeveloped are two cameos

—by John Waters and Jennifer

Coolidge—that could have been much more fun than they are.

As Dave, Lee is about as good as he needs to be, knowing he’s just a co-star to three furry rodents; his trademark yell—ALVIN!!!—is his most distinctive feature. Williams- Paisley brings a sense of caring and chemistry to a very small role, while Hale, as the villainous air marshal, mugs for the camera every chance he gets.

The blending of the computergenerated characters into live action scenes is uneven, the chipmunks are sometimes difficult to understand, and product placement is out of control.

This is a bright and bouncy offering for the holidays, but it’s far from classic movie-making. It lacks fresh ideas, a sense of edge and a realization that animated storytelling has come a long way since these critters made their first appearance in a novelty Christmas song almost 60 years ago.

Alvin Simon, and Theodore deserve a better movie.


 

 

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