Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip review: The fourth Chipmunks movie gives us much of the same.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip review
Sometimes it can be really healthy to hate a film. It makes your blood boil, you curse the hours wasted, and with every passing minute you notice more and more things wrong with the feature. By the time it’s finished you have a pretty well formed rant of absolutely everything that is wrong. So it can sometimes be disappointing when a film you expected to hate doesn’t quite infuriate you. This isn’t to say that Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip can be considered good, or even enjoyable, but at least it doesn’t completely ruin your day.
In this inexplicable fourth instalment, Alvin (Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), and Theodore (Jesse McCartney) find themselves thrust out of the limelight as the Chipettes (Anna Faris, Christina Applegate, Kaley Cuoco) become the new judges on American Idol. That’s the least of their problems though as Dave (Jason Lee) looks set to engage his girlfriend and also bring her horrible son Miles (Josh Green) into their family. As Dave and Samantha (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) go off to Miami, the chipmunks and Miles are left alone, but upon discovering Dave’s plan to propose, all four decide to ruin his idea by taking a trip themselves, while pursued by a hateful Air Marshal, Agent Suggs (Tony Hale).
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip review
The plot couldn’t be simpler and the formula couldn’t be more stuck to. It’s silly and obnoxious, and a little cruel of the chipmunks, but it is also a simple plot for the extra young audience the film is aimed at. Certain parts work better than others, and none of it is particularly funny, but aside from a number a bodily function jokes, it at least remains tasteful and not offensive. The slapstick is the only real comedy that works, and even that is very miss and rarely hit.
The script feels clunkier in its dialogue, with outdated terms and painful usage of words that middle aged people think kids use. There’s also a peculiarity running throughout the film that sees a number of horror/cult film references make their way into this very light and fluffy kids movie. Music from psycho, name checking Chucky, a mention of Linda Blair, and a cameo by John Waters as himself, are just some of the parts that really don’t feel natural to the story, but sound more as though one of the writers is forcing their own likes into the film.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip review
Outside of the story we get an almost complete returning cast, which makes you wonder why Fox are still shelling out for such high profile names. The voices are beyond recognition, so it’s no surprise that I failed to notice the switch from Amy Poehler to Cuoco. Lee also still seems bored, and once again ducks out of the film for a large portion of the runtime by having a Miami montage which I am positive was made up of actual vacation footage of Jason Lee. After four films you’d expect Lee to seem more natural when interacting with his CG sons. Much better at such a task is Green, who has great rapport with the cheeky trio, and does fairly well with his own emotional arc.
The humour is predictable, the songs are irritating and at risk of ruining great tunes, and the script already feels dated. But this is the fourth one, so it makes little sense to be angry at the franchise any longer. The episodic nature of the plot, with the film compiled of set pieces, keeps a pace that will enthrall the young ones and keep them glued to the screen, but overall this is just a bright and loud film to keep their attention without offering anything in the way of artistic merit or moral value. Let’s just be thankful that Uptown Funk is not changed to Uptown Munk like it was in the trailers, despite the fact the lyric ‘put some liquor in it’ is changed to ‘put some water in it’ even though a character gets drunk on moonshine and gets a tattoo. Mixed messages if ever I saw one.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip review by Luke Ryan Baldock, February 2016.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip is released on 12th February.
