Alvin and the Chipmunks

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I fondly remember growing up watching "Alvin and the Chipmunks" on Saturday morning cartoons and listening to a cassette tape I had bought featuring the singing chipmunks. I cannot recall a single song that was included on that cassette tape. However, Dave Seville´s shouting "ALVIN!" will forever be embedded in my collection memory from my youth. The music and adventures of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" were very much part of my growing up. They were funny, musical and I could relate to many of the episodes from my own growing up. Through my formative years, I was unaware of the history of the Alvin, Simon and Theodore. The five Grammy Awards and early history during the late Fifties and Sixties were unknown to me at the time and I always looked at the "Chipmunks" as something from my generation.

The singing trio created by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. is revisited and re-imagined for a new generation with the 2007 feature film "Alvin and the Chipmunks." This new feature pays homage to the 1958 song "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don´t Be Late)" that began the career of Alvin and his two brothers. It also borrows from some of the humor and character development that was brought about by the television show that entertained me as a youngster. Directed by Tim Hill and co-produced by Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., the new take on "Alvin and the Chipmunks" holds just true enough to not disenfranchise those of us in our early thirties and late twenties that grew up enjoying Dave Seville´s singing chipmunks, but the new film digs into the music and hip-hop environment that should fulfill the interests of today´s younger audience.

The film begins by providing the backstory for Alvin (Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Theodore (Jesse McCartney). They live in a large pine tree in the forest and find themselves being annoyed by their daily survival. Through a few twists of fate, the three find themselves in the care of a struggling musician, Dave Seville (Jason Lee). Seville is a person who can barely keep himself together and care for himself. His career as an advertising person is in jeopardy and he is unable to convince his friend and record label executive Ian Hawke (David Cross) from buying one of his songs. The girl he desires, Claire (Cameron Richardson), doesn´t want to see him any more after patiently hoping that he would grow up. The last thing Seville wanted or needed was a family and he finds three adolescent chipmunks who can talk and sing.

The story moves along and follows the ups and downs of Seville´s relationship with the trio of chipmunks and their musical careers. Seville initially finds the chipmunks to be nothing more than bothersome to his daily life. They sabotage his career, attempts at rekindling romance with Claire and trash his apartment. He is interested in their musical talents, but an agreement made between Seville and chipmunk enters shaky ground when the three find stage fright. Eventually, the chipmunks are heard and ´Uncle´ Ian instantly signs Alvin, Simon and Theodore after hearing "The Chipmunk Song." Soon, Ian works against Dave to be the one who benefits the most from the superstar status of the three singing chipmunks and causes a huge rift between Dave Seville and Alvin, Simon and Theodore.

I thought the first forty minutes of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" was pure entertainment. It reminded me greatly of my childhood and the three chipmunks that I grew up watching. Alvin was the eager and ´awesome´ leader of the three and the first to find trouble. Simon is the smart and visually impaired brother who typically gets into less trouble than his siblings and Theodore just eats himself into trouble and being the youngest of the three, he is naïve to the world. The music, the humor and the story of the chipmunks all fit neatly into the images I had engraved into my memory as to how I remembered the chipmunks. I enjoyed the backstory that explained how the three chipmunks came into the life of Dave Seville and while I remember Dave as being a little more ´together,´ I certainly enjoyed the always entertaining Jason Lee as the new Dave Seville.

The second half of the film was passable entertainment, but I found myself just hoping for Dave and the Chipmunks to get back into a relationship far more similar to how the film began. The theme of the second half revolved around corporate greed grabbing hold of our beloved striped rodents and looked into the insane schedule of a superstar in today´s musical environment. When you have three characters who are fully able to get into enough trouble on their own, I didn´t particularly feel an outside force was needed to provide story and mayhem for the film. They could have stretched out the rise to fame of Alvin, Simon and Theodore and had the three sabotage a few more days in the life of Dave without the need for the story arc of ´Uncle´ Ian.

As a whole, the film was pretty good entertainment. I had to take some time and think about the entire picture, because my initial impression was that the second half was nowhere near as entertaining as the first half of the film and I wasn´t pleased with the unevenness of the feature film. After thinking about the picture after a little bit, I´m somewhat forgiving to the time when Dave and Alvin were separated by the luster of being a celebrity. The film became too big and too noisy and truly lost the essence of what made the creations of Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. so special. The filmmakers and writer Jon Vitti nailed the first forty five minutes and I was pleasantly surprised by the film, but the second half was a hip-hop mess that thrust the Chipmunks into the new millennium, but I´m not sure this is where they shine the most.

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