Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)

  Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011) is the bottom of the barrel as kids' movies can go. A laugh-free, painful experience with no redeeming qualities to speak. It appeals only to kids who can't say no to crap or don't have any basic thinking skills to acknowledge crap when they see it. It pains me to know this movie was an immense success at the box office while at the same time being one of those kids who watched the film. I pity the parents dragged to the theaters by their kids, forced to watch this movie to please them. (I hope the sacrifice was worth it.) 

  Revisiting the Alvin and the Chipmunks film series is something of a difficult task. Not that it's hard to judge a dreadful series of kid's movies, but to watch them again and relive the unknown cringe that came with it. But we cannot just jump into this film right away; we have to look back at the origins of this series and why this movie stands out as the worst of the four films. I cannot express my immense dislike for this movie series. There were better films kids grew up watching throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. 

Ross S. Bagdasarian (1919-1972)

  Alvin and the Chipmunks began as a virtual band created in 1958 by record producer Ross Bagdasarian (1919-1972). Under the stage name Dave Seville, the singer-songwriter launched the band as a novelty record. He achieved the high-pitched singing voices by manipulating the speed control on a tape recorder. The Chipmunks were a success, racking up $20 million from record sales by 1963 and winning three Grammy awards at the 1st Grammys. The success spawned two TV shows, The Alvin Show (1961-1962) and Alvin and the Chipmunks (1983-1990). Bagdasarian would continue to perform as the chipmunks and produce songs until his death from a heart attack in 1972. 

I had this movie on DVD. It's a shame I lost it some time ago.

  The Chipmunks would continue after Bagdasarian's death, under his son and daughter-in-law, Bagdasarian Jr., and Janice Karmine. The group would have their first feature film in 1987, The Chipmunk Adventure, which also stared their female counterparts, the Chipettes. The subsequent film would earn the best reception and is considered better than the live-action films. It would be 20 years before the chipmunks got their film similar to other cartoons of the last 30-something years. 

  25-years after Bagdasarian's demise, his son attempted to get a live-action film made with Universal Pictures. Both parties agreed to make the film under the guise Universal would produce content for the brand as part of a licensing agreement. Robert Zemeckis would've directed it, but the project collapsed after Bagdasarian's estate sued the studio for failing to make any content of the chipmunks. 20th Century Fox picked up the rights in 2005, releasing Alvin and the Chipmunks two years later, with Jason Lee as David Seville. The chipmunks, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, were voiced by Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney. 

  The film's plot focused on struggling musician Dave Seville, who finds success with the chipmunks, attracting the attention of music producer Ian Hawk (David Cross). The movie was a box office success ($361.3 million), despite mixed-to-negative reviews from critics. Common criticisms focused on the use of scatological humor, the chipmunks' lack of distinctive personalities, Jason Lee's performance, and rehashing the kid's movie formula. Nevertheless, the film was successful enough to produce a sequel in 2009 titled Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. The film earned worse reviews than its predecessor, but it was a box office success, grossing more than the first film ($441.3 million). 

  In 2011, the film series would hit rock bottom with the third installment Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. The film was a success at the box office (unfortunately) but earned the worst reviews the series had seen up to that point. It holds a 12% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a critical consensus stating: "Lazy, wrote, and grating, Chipwrecked is lowest-common-denominator family entertainment that's strictly for the very, very, very young at heart." The film also earned a 24 on Metacritic and a 4.3/10 on IMDb. Despite that, 20th Century Fox would release one more film, The Road Chip (2015), grossing less than its predecessors ($234.8 million) but still did well financially. 

  So, after two less than stellar films, what makes this movie stand out as the worst out of all four chipmunks films? The bar was never high for these films (There was never even a bar to speak of.), so why is this movie the worst out of them all? The answer is quite simple: it has no plot. Chipwrecked is a non-existent movie strung together with disjointed scenes to qualify as a movie. The film centers on the chipmunks, the Chipettes, and Dave taking a cruise to an award show, only to get stranded on an island due to Alvin's antics. It's here where Ian Hawke (David Cross) and Dave (Jason Lee) reluctantly band together to rescue the chipmunks. 

  If you skipped this film and watched the fourth one instead, you wouldn't miss anything. Chipwrecked is filler stretched to feature-length to qualify as an actual film. The film doesn't impact the storyline in any significant way. You could have had the chipmunks take a plane to the awards show, and it wouldn't have changed anything. But of course, there has to be a third Chipmunks film while the brand is still in its prime. 

  The film has the strange distinction of being Jenny Slate's film debut, who portrays Zoe, the stranded castaway who meets the chipmunks and schemes to find treasure. Slate herself is a talented voice actress, and much like her peers Jason Lee and David Cross, they are wasted in this film. David Cross provides the movie with the handful of laughs it doesn't deserve, which is hard to come by in these films. The humor consists of the same scatological humor of the previous films, terrible puns, and references to popular culture. The film has large amounts of filler to reach the feature-length runtime, with scenes that don't impact the plot. One of these scenes involves the chipmunks going to a casino, where the Chipettes engage in a dance-off with three patrons, best described by Doug Walker as "A dance-off between happy meal toys and the Powerpuff whores."

  The movie, much like the last two, has a soundtrack that consists of existing songs, with atrocious renders of "Trouble" by Pink and "Survivor" by Beyoncé. These musical numbers pop out randomly throughout the film with no proper build-up. The stranded island plot has nothing going for it, being filler like the rest of the film. If you have seen Tarzan, George of the Jungle, and Madagascar, then you have seen this movie. Chipwrecked uses the "stranded on an island" plot and does nothing new or poking fun at it, unlike good kid's films which poke fun at the genre. 

How did you go from Mr. Show and Arrested Development to this is a mystery I will never solve.

  As previously mentioned, the film is one terrible pun after the other, with Alvin explaining what makes his pun so (allegedly) funny in one scene. Speaking of Alvin, he's the same troublemaker of the last two films, still causing Dave a lot of trouble like in the past. He remains the same unlikeable character as before, with no improvements to his character or any of the chipmunks. Jason Lee sounds unenthusiastic as Dave, phoning in his performance throughout the film, his "Alvin!" yell sounds shrill and forced. David Cross' character goes through a redemption arc, but it's not worth it to sit through an entire film. It's a film he didn't want to do, and the fact he called it "the most miserable experience of my career" cements how he wished to have said "no" to the offer. 

 "Phoned in" and "forced" best describe this film. There was nothing of value earned by viewing the said film, instead of any entertainment value. I admit to having seen this film, and even at that age, I thought it was lackluster. It represents everything wrong with children's movies today: excessive scatological humor and overflowing pop culture references. The chipmunks' movies could have been better had these two elements been removed entirely, along with better scriptwriting. The Chipmunk Adventure was a fun film to watch because it wasn't reliant on these conventions, going for an adventurous tone and fun vibe instead. It's not hard to guess why fans of the chipmunks prefer the 1987 film over the live actions films. 

Chipwrecked is a one-joke movie stretched out to feature-length with no redeemable qualities. It's phoned-in, lazy, low-grade entertainment that exemplifies what makes kid's films so bad. It mashes random scenes with musical numbers, overloaded with pop culture references and fart jokes. Alvin and the Chipmunks deserve a better movie, along with kids and the parents they forced to watch this film.

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