it’s a few months old but i finally decided to buckle down and watch alvin and the chipmunks. now before i start, i didn’t even have any preconceived notions of this film. i didn’t expect it to be horrid or wildly entertaining, in actuality, i didn’t presuppose to ever watch the cgi flick. but i did.

now here’s the shocker; i did not hate the movie. in fact, i laughed much more during this re-done early nineties animation than i did in st. trinian’s or walk hard:the dewey cox story. now let’s go over the pros and cons of the movie, because their are many of both parties involved.

let’s review the good qualities primarily. it very much plays off the nostalgic days of yesteryear, chipmunk singing including. the movie is funny, it’s just not adult funny, in fact, i wouldn’t expect any adults to even enjoy the movie in the slightest. in fact i don’t anticipate most mature audiences rating it above a five. as for me, i don’t know if it was the sentimentality of the premise or the always likable jason lee, but i enjoyed it. i did not thoroughly love it, but it was definitely entertaining and even heartwarming.

it sounds cliche but the movie tugged at the chords of my heart much like transformers did; this may be one reason that i overlooked many of it’s glaring flaws. weird, comparing transformers and alvin and the chipmunks, but if i watched one more than the other, the award would go the choral rodents.

i grew up on chipmunk records, movies and adored the cartoon. alvin was as much a hero to me as bart simpson was. voices from the past aside, it was fun to watch. it wasn’t great. it was like the plain jane at a bar after a night of drunken flirtatiousness, a one nighter, two timer at best.

now for the flaws. the movie is outdated. watching it, i flashbacked to the nineties when cgi was just coming into the cinematic playing field. it felt more like a family film than anything but was much to childish for parents. also, it’s sad to see the once godly jason lee of mallrats and dogma fame revert to update nineties revamp. fart jokes abound along with silly slapstick that doesn’t quite sit right. to be honest, my opinion is jaded from growing up through the alvin decade.

the plot is generic and overdone. i couldn’t stand the way it played out, it was completely predictable. it was so sub-par but that’s what i have to deal with when it comes to renewals. oh well.

as an epilogue: having justin long and jessie mccartney doing the voices doesn’t fucking matter. the chipmunks will sound like the chipmunks no matter what. it’s computer tech.

bottom line: don’t expect transformers. precognate a musical tmnt. it’s children’s entertainment and draws heavily on mid-nineties comedy, which even chronologically old.

the movie is comparable to: watching a marathon of all your favorite oldie saturday morning cartoons, feeling warm and fuzzy in the snare of a fur blanket by the fire, tmnt or toy story.