The 1980’s musical trio is back in their fourth feature film, centering around the themes of family and the search for the need to fit in to a place to call your own. Through a series of misunderstandings, Alvin, Simon and Theodore come to believe that Dave (Jason Lee) is going to propose to his new girlfriend in Miami and dump them. They have three days to get to him and stop the proposal, with many miles between their tiny frames, with a goal of saving themselves not only from losing Dave but possibly from gaining a terrible stepbrother in Miles (Josh Green) who is out to make their lives miserable. Over the course of the trip, Miles and the boys discover that they have more in common than they thought, all the while dodging an air marshall (Tony Hale) with his own reasons to punish the chipmunks. It’s a race to South Beach while laying it all on the line. The film is directed by Walt Becker who makes his first directing effort since the critically panned 2009 effort “Old Dogs”. Also complimented by voice acting from Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jessie McCartney, Kaley Cuoco, Anna Faris, and Christina Applegate.

“Alvin and The Chipmunks : The Road Chip” is a horrible abomination of a film. It’s corny nature is fine, but it’s problems in script and technical errors leave this effort the worst of the four films. For starters, the film’s coloring and shading looks ridiculous in wide shots. If you choose to suspend disbelief for this dud of trash, you will have to do it without looking at the faces of the live action human beings around the chipmunks. There were so many times during the film where the film extras weren’t even looking anywhere close to their CGI counterparts during wide angle shots. If this wasn’t funny enough, the CGI looks terribly too clean when a chipmunk climbs on top of a human being. It’s a reminder that this film had the most minimal of effort put into it, but who cares because kids right? In addition to this, there is nothing of any kind of substance in the script to make the audience feel even remotely moved. At 85 minutes, the film is certainly an easy sit, but it’s ease comes at the hands of immature gags and silly stereotypes that only a youngster would believe. I didn’t laugh even a single time, and that mostly has to do with the jokes relaying with such awfully cheesy timing. I get that the chipmunks films are supposed to be filled with these kinds of jokes, but after four films it just feels tired and repetitive in delivery.

As proof that no single thing is safe from demeaning this film, the cast (both vocally and actingly) are a big waste of time. There isn’t a single doubt in my mind that Jason Lee is doing this to collect a paycheck during the twilight of his acting prime, and that is made more evident by his lack of personality for playing the main human of the film. At least during the earlier efforts we got that sarcastic but witty side of the Lee persona, but in The Road Chip, this role could’ve been played by any actor fresh out of a stage play. He is as blank as a fresh piece of paper, and it leaves us in search of someone to fall back on for direction. That unfortunately doesn’t come in the A-list cast of celebrtities because their vocal talents are overshadowed by annoying voices that shadow any semblence of familiarity with their voices. Be honest, did you really know any of the people who were voicing the chipmunks and chipettes before i mentioned it in the first paragraph? NO WAY. What is the point of even casting these big names if nothing about their vocal work is memorable. Nobody will remember this cast in this film five years from now, and that’s the mark of a real disaster of a production budget.

Worse than any of this however, is the music and concept of these films. The soundtrack is a collection of top 40 sleepers that have more than overstayed their welcome by the time this film was released. If there’s one way to put it, Alvin and the Chipmunks are like the “KIDZ BOP” of the film world. We’ve all been up at midnight when the advertisements for these awful commercials advertise kids singing a song that you have already heard 40,000 times on the radio, and it’s agony. That is the same problem with this film; we are getting songs that we thought were put away for good be brought back to life with the biggest headache-inducing squealing that you have ever heard. The film has no fewer than seven musical numbers, and it’s clear by a songs-to-storyline ratio that this movie was made with the bare minimum of thought concept. I would get behind any kind of conflict or response that put these characters in a cloud of panic, but this movie is played off without anything for the adults to chime in with. Sure the kids will love it, but how much will you love your kids after nearly an hour and a half of musical numbers that will have you rushing home to grab the Excedrin.

Overall, “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip” is an early Christmas sweater in a stereo box. It’s the joke present of the season before unwrapping something much greater. Four movies have shown that this saga and it’s characters have overstayed their welcome. Grab your nuts and get the hell out. Since joke puns seem to be the hip thing with this series of films, I will give my grade accordingly………

Tree/10