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Alvin and the Chipmunks
The creator of Spongebob Square Pants decided that a live action re-imagining of the 1960's cartoon series Alvin and the Chipmunks would be a good idea. I imagine a pretty good idea on paper whose execution to the screen definitely has its problems, but there are scattered laughs.
The 2007 film stars Jason Lee as Dave Seville, an advertising executive who really wants to be a songwriter, who discovers three chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore have snuck into his home and right before he is about to throw them out of his house, discovers that they can sing and eventually gets them signed to Jett Records, but the evil owner of Jett Records sees serious dollar signs with the chipmunks and steals them away from Dave so that he can make them stars and line his own pockets.
To be honest, I was in grade school when the original cartoon premiered on CBS and don't remember a lot about it. All I remember is that Dave was always trying to make records with the chipmunk trio and Alvin was always screwing things up. The whole thing of Alvin being the troublemaker is pretty much absent here and the chipmunks act as a unit. It actually took three screenwriters to come up with this silly and slightly saccharine story that comes off like a standard musical biopic featuring most of the scenes that we see in a biopic…the rise to fame sequence, the fame going to the stars' heads, and the eventual burn out. The only thing we don't get is the scenes where the star gets hooked on alcohol and drugs, but I guess watching chipmunks snorting cocaine wouldn't really work, though there is a scene where they get recharged at a recording session with coffee topped with whipped cream and shots of chocolate. I was also amused when during their original audition for Jett Records, they can't sing in front of the manager out of fear that reminded me of the classic Warner Brothers cartoon One Froggy Evening.
Director Tim Hill, creator of Spongebob, was afforded a big budget for this and, not accidentally, managed to sprinkle Spongebob clips throughout the film, though they had nothing to do with the story at hand. Lee is pretty much phoning it in here, he just looks embarrassed to be involved in this, but David Cross (Arrested Development) steals every scene he's in as Ian, the evil president of Jett Records. Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney provide the voices of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, respectively, though you really can't tell because the voices are pitched so high they sound exactly the same. It's not Merchant and Ivory, but there are laughs here and there.
The creator of Spongebob Square Pants decided that a live action re-imagining of the 1960's cartoon series Alvin and the Chipmunks would be a good idea. I imagine a pretty good idea on paper whose execution to the screen definitely has its problems, but there are scattered laughs.
The 2007 film stars Jason Lee as Dave Seville, an advertising executive who really wants to be a songwriter, who discovers three chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore have snuck into his home and right before he is about to throw them out of his house, discovers that they can sing and eventually gets them signed to Jett Records, but the evil owner of Jett Records sees serious dollar signs with the chipmunks and steals them away from Dave so that he can make them stars and line his own pockets.
To be honest, I was in grade school when the original cartoon premiered on CBS and don't remember a lot about it. All I remember is that Dave was always trying to make records with the chipmunk trio and Alvin was always screwing things up. The whole thing of Alvin being the troublemaker is pretty much absent here and the chipmunks act as a unit. It actually took three screenwriters to come up with this silly and slightly saccharine story that comes off like a standard musical biopic featuring most of the scenes that we see in a biopic…the rise to fame sequence, the fame going to the stars' heads, and the eventual burn out. The only thing we don't get is the scenes where the star gets hooked on alcohol and drugs, but I guess watching chipmunks snorting cocaine wouldn't really work, though there is a scene where they get recharged at a recording session with coffee topped with whipped cream and shots of chocolate. I was also amused when during their original audition for Jett Records, they can't sing in front of the manager out of fear that reminded me of the classic Warner Brothers cartoon One Froggy Evening.
Director Tim Hill, creator of Spongebob, was afforded a big budget for this and, not accidentally, managed to sprinkle Spongebob clips throughout the film, though they had nothing to do with the story at hand. Lee is pretty much phoning it in here, he just looks embarrassed to be involved in this, but David Cross (Arrested Development) steals every scene he's in as Ian, the evil president of Jett Records. Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney provide the voices of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, respectively, though you really can't tell because the voices are pitched so high they sound exactly the same. It's not Merchant and Ivory, but there are laughs here and there.