Salt Lake Tribune Review

A Saturday matinee of "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" is a movie critic's idea of purgatory: A never-ending wait in nothingness, watching performers you respect forced to interact with computer-generated furballs that aren't really there, and spouting inane dialogue that some committee of hack writers thought would be funny.

Here's the worst part: My kids liked it.

"Like" in this case, thankfully, is a relative term.

My kids laughed at the slapstick antics of Alvin, Simon and Theodore, returning for a second outing after their successful 2007 update. My kids thought the Chipmunks' high-pitched voices were cute. They said they liked the movie when they left the theater.

But in the 36 hours after seeing "The Squeakquel," my kids said almost nothing about it. The Chipmunks may have been funny, but they were also forgettable -- as they did nothing to put a dent in my kids' current cartoon obsessions.

The story begins with the Chipmunks on their world-rock tour, which ends abruptly when Alvin's showboating leads to poor Dave Seville (Jason Lee, back briefly from the first film) in traction in a Paris hospital. The Chipmunks are sent home to Los Angeles, to be cared for by Dave's Aunt Jackie (Kathryn Joosten, formerly of "The West Wing") -- but when Jackie is injured at the airport (the second person who escapes the movie via a stretcher), it's up to Jackie's slacker grandson Toby ("Chuck" star Zachary Levi) to take
The Chipmunks enroll in high school, as scheming jocks and other forms of peer pressure threaten to divide Alvin from his brothers. There's also competition from the Chipettes, three female singing rodents being groomed for superstardom by the Chipmunks' revenge-driven ex-manager Ian Hawke (David Cross).

Director Betty Thomas ("John Tucker Must Die," "The Brady Bunch Movie") moves the proceedings with the undemanding pacing of a bad sitcom. The script, by a trio of TV writers, runs the Chipmunks through the routine paces -- will Alvin sing with his brothers to save the music program, or get his ego stroked playing football? -- without any imagination.

The movie boasts several celebrity voices (Justin Long returns as Alvin, and the Chipettes' voices are provided by Christina Applegate, Anna Faris and Amy Poehler) but you have to wonder why a movie production wastes its money hiring celebrities when their sped-up voices are rendered unrecognizable.

As I said, kids may enjoy "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel." But kids also would enjoy an all-candy dinner -- which is why grown-ups have to step in and help them make better entertainment choices.

-- Sean P. Means

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