I didn’t really expect Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip to be something groundbreaking, I’ve seen every installation in the series, and none of them have ever managed to impress me. Of course, there are good and bad things about this series, but the bad seriously outweighs the good, particularly more in this one. Not only does this film have some of the worst parts of the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise, but it also has a boring story, a bland set of characters, and no development whatsoever. This road trip film is not entertaining at all, and that’s the worst thing that any road trip film has to fear.
How to Download Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
You can download this 2015 film from a digital store. You can also stream it. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice. If you like the franchise, check out also other films from the series – Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007), Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), and Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked (2011).
The Movie Review
Here we are, another Alvin and the Chipmunks film.
This one has one of the poorest overall plots even though it is roughly what you would expect from this series given the not-so-amazing tenure they’ve had. However, this series has gone out with a whimper instead of a bang. This time, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore embark on a fun journey across the southern United States as they make their way from Los Angeles to Florida in an effort to prevent Dave from having an affair, which would cause him to leave the Chipmunks behind and make them stepbrothers with their worst enemy—or at least that’s what they imagine will happen.
The last three of these films that I watched, I did somewhat enjoy them in all honesty, but they aren’t at all decent in terms of quality or entertainment. The Road Chip somehow surpasses even Chipwrecked in terms of poor quality. Though they are dumb, they occasionally succeed in achieving their intended goals, which is to be dumb and funny entertainers for families during the Holiday season.
Road Chip, on the other hand, there is hardly anything you can support. The character development from earlier movies is completely ignored, the characters are superficial, their goals are absurd, and it is problematic that they continue to judge events before they have occurred and people before they have even come to know them, despite the previous films, show them growing out of that mindset.
Even though Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip is clearly the poorest entry, it’s still got some things going for it. For example, the animation is fantastic and the art design for the Chipmunks is really good. In fact, the VFX work is so good in this film that they almost seemed photo-realistic despite the cartoonish appearance of these characters.
Moreover, the film is backed by some phenomenal voice acting by the lead cast, but that doesn’t seem to carry over into the live-action actors who delivered terrible performances. Apart from Tony Hale, he does a phenomenal job.
The Music
Now, a huge gimmick for these films is the music. Music is supposed to be an essential part of these films, and they’re supposed to elevate the quality of these films into something more akin to a musical. That’s not the case here, the musical segments in this film are genuinely bad. Not only are they placed at awkward times which decreases their value overall, but they also end up taking over some emotional scenes which could have been so much better if they were just through spoken dialogue. The songs are supposed to be cheer-up music, but here they are more interrupting than anything else.
The Verdict
Even a 6-year-old would describe this film as “a little kids’ movie” due to its blatantly unfunny humor and sheer bland childishness. It contains coarse humor, and poor acting, and even David Cross has admitted that the experience of recording his sequences was unpleasant.
I thought the movie was beyond terrible, and a complete waste of time despite having a few good things going for it. However, none of the good things managed to save this film, and the series has ended on a whimper, begging to be rebooted with production and staff that are wiser than this.
