Directors: Tim Hill
Starring: Jason Lee, David Cross, Cameron Richardson, Justin Long, Jesse McCartney
Genre: Comedy, Family, Holiday
Rated: Rated PG for some mild rude humor
Plot: Based on the 1958 music of Ross Bagdasarian and the 1980’s cartoons of the same name, Alvin and the Chipmunks is the story of a down on his luck song rider named Dave Seville, played by Jason Lee, who encounters a trio of singing chipmunks who turn his career and his life around just in time for Christmas.

My Review: I was a huge fan of the Chipmunks when I was growing up. I had all of their records (yes, thats right actual vinyl). I missed out on watching the Chipmunk cartoons that were on in the 80’s but my younger sister watched them. So I was looking forward to introducing my own kids to Alvin, Simon, and Theodore this Christmas. I didn’t have very high expectations for this film and those low expectations were in this case met in full.

Jason Lee, of My Name is Earl fame, plays the down on his luck song writer Dave Seville. While Lee can pull off the character Earl Hickey, is at the end of the day just not a very good actor. While Lee does a good job of playing up the disaster that is Dave’s life, his acting just didn’t seem very smooth. He seemed especially uncomfortable in the scenes in which he had to interact with the Chipmunks and pretend they were in front of him when in fact they would be added later using CGI. The Chipmunk CGI wasn’t bad but it didn’t blend with the live action as well as I would have liked. The chipmunks seemed like cartoons in the real world ala Who Framed Roger Rabbit instead of an actual part of the scene. David Cross on the other hand did an awesome job as the evil Uncle Ian. His character and acting were dead on. Kudos to Cross.

They used the standard plot for Dave meeting the Chipmunks which was fine. The problem I had with the plot was the time line. Within 48 hours Dave meets the Chipmunks becomes emotionally attached to them and they become superstars. They could easily have stretched the timeline out just to make it a little more believable. I mean as believable as three talking chipmunks can be. The part of the movie I liked the best was without a doubt the sound track. They did a really good job of taking the Chipmunks classic music and updating it for modern audiences. We definitely had to download several of the songs the next day for the kids. We ended up buying the entire album.

While I wasn’t that impressed with the movie, the kids really enjoyed it and at the end of the day that’s whats important. I was happy that they had the opportunity to have the chipmunks be part of their Christmas the way they were part of mine when I was young. For that alone it was worth going to see the movie. Just because the movie is cheesie doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go see it. If you enjoyed the Chipmunks as a child and you have kids of your own, I recommend you go see it. If not, I wouldn’t bother.

Rating: 2/5 stars
High Point: The sound track.
Low Point: Bad acting by Jason Lee.

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