Oh Alvin, what have you wrought? A single 1958 novelty record, recorded by a whimsical songwriter-actor named Ross Bagdasarian, has created an entire mini-industry that continues to this day.
And so we get this week’s Christmas opening “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” a follow-up to a successful 2007 feature. Here once again are the eternally youthful, eternally high-pitched cartoon Chipmunks: Alvin, Simon and Theodore.
The Chipmunks are computer-generated these days, of course, the better to let them interact with their live-action co-stars. Having achieved great success as rock stars in the first film, we find the helium-voiced rodents attending high school in this outing.
Not a school for chipmunks, mind you, but a regular high school. This is a somewhat surreal movie.
For some reason, it is considered all right for the school to include three tiny chipmunks in its classrooms, just as it was considered normal for Alvin and his brothers to rock out on stage with human musicians. The world’s gone mad, I tell you.
Anyway. Jason Lee, who played the boys’ guardian David Seville in the first film, apparently decided he had better things to do than be in the squeakquel, because Dave gets injured in the opening sequence and is sidelined for most of the picture.
Chipmunks are handed over to Dave’s nephew (Zachary Levi, from TV’s “Chuck,” who is sort of the poor man’s John Krasinski) for care. Meanwhile, although it probably sounds like some sort of random coincidence, three female chipmunks, aka the Chipettes, arrive in Los Angeles looking for a record deal of their own.
Tragically, they come to the attention of the same nefarious promoter (David Cross) who got his grubby paws on the Chipmunks in the previous movie. And all of a sudden it’s “Dreamgirls” with fur.
This one’s directed by Betty Thomas, a comedy pro, which may be why some of the jokes agreeably pay off and the film actually has some rhythm to it. There is no reason children won’t enjoy seeing the pratfalls and hearing the silly wordplay of the Chipmunks.
Thomas has staged the film as though it were an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, which means awful things happen to live-action people.
Weird. But “weird” is a relative term when you’re in the Chipmunk realm and sometimes you just have to go with it. Maybe their next Squeakquel could have James Cameron directing them in a 3-D sci-fi epic. But no Smell-o-vision, please.
“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” HH
Alvin, Simon and Theodore, those three adorable, helium-voiced rodents, return in computer-generated form for a follow-up to their 2007 hit. This time they are joined by the Chipettes, a girl group. Some of the jokes actually pay off, although the whole thing is pretty surreal.
Rated: PG for violence
Showing: Everett, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood, Metro, Oak Tree, Woodinville
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