In a sentenceDavid Cross spends the whole film in a pelican costume and we understood exactly how he felt
Dave (Jason Lee) takes Alvin (Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Theodore (Jesse McCartney), along with the Chipettes Brittany (Christina Applegate), Jeanette (Anna Faris) and Eleanor (Amy Poehler), on a cruise before a music awards show. Alvin runs riot aboard, Dave tries to keep order, and Ian (David Cross), their old manager and enemy, turns up working as the ship’s mascot in a pelican suit. A kite stunt on deck carries all six chipmunks over the rail, and Dave and Ian go in after them. They wash up on an island where Zoe (Jenny Slate), a castaway of several years, talks to sports balls she has given names and faces, and the chipmunks have to fend for themselves while Dave searches for them.
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The third live-action Chipmunks film strands its cast on an island and runs out of ideas within twenty minutes. Small children will sit through it happily. Everyone else is marooned alongside David Cross, who spends the film dressed as a pelican.
Mike Mitchell’s film, the third in the live-action series, takes Dave (Jason Lee), the three Chipmunks and the three Chipettes on a cruise, loses them overboard on a kite, and strands them on an island for the rest of the running time. The idea is sound. Six small animals used to pop charts and hotel suites have to fend for themselves, and Dave has to find them. Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger’s script gets through everything it has to say about this in about twenty minutes, and the film is 87 minutes long.
The cruise is the better part. Alvin (Justin Long) runs riot on the ship and then sends a kite over the rail with his brothers and the Chipettes hanging off it. Dave jumps after them. So does Ian (David Cross), the villain of the first two films, who is now the ship’s mascot and spends the whole film in a pelican costume. Cross plays him as a man who has stopped expecting anything, and his scenes with Lee are the only ones in which two adults talk to each other. We laughed at the pelican, properly, more than once; then we felt a little sorry, because the joke is partly about Cross himself and he plainly knows it.
On the island they find Zoe (Jenny Slate), a castaway of several years who talks to sports balls she has given names and faces. The borrowing from Cast Away (2000) is open and not unfunny, and Slate throws herself at it. The second half hands Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) a change of character that we will not describe, and it is the thing small children will like most. We could see why: he is the one character in the film who changes at all.
Thomas E. Ackerman shoots it all in flat, even sunlight, the ship bright white and the island bright green, so that nothing is ever in shadow and nothing is ever hard to see. Richard Holland’s island has a beach, a waterfall, a cave and a tree the chipmunks sleep in, and that is the whole of it; by the second night we knew every corner. Peter Amundson cuts fast enough that children will not notice how little there is, though the adults will. Alexandra Welker’s costumes are the pelican suit and Zoe’s outfit of weathered sports kit, and both are good jokes worn well.
Mark Mothersbaugh’s score is cheerful and stays out of the way. The songs are pop covers at chipmunk pitch, as they always are, and most pass without leaving a mark. The Chipettes (Christina Applegate, Anna Faris and Amy Poehler) get a couple of a cappella numbers on the island that are the best music in the film, because for once the squeak is not competing with a drum machine. Theodore (Jesse McCartney) and Eleanor are given almost nothing to do, and Brittany and Alvin bicker about who is in charge until the script decides they have both learned something.
We were bored by the halfway mark, and then puzzled, because a film this short should not have time to be padded, and this one finds it. Scenes of Dave and Ian walking through jungle and arguing are repeated until they become a rhythm. The lessons arrive on schedule: Alvin learns responsibility, Dave learns to let go, and both are announced out loud in case anyone missed them. Mitchell directed Shrek Forever After (2010), and Aibel and Berger wrote Kung Fu Panda (2008), so everyone involved has shown they can do more than this.
Most critics gave it a poor notice and we are with them. Children under eight will enjoy the dancing, the pelican and what happens to Simon, and will not mind the rest. Adults should sit near the aisle. It is not unkind, not loud for the sake of it, and not quite dull enough to sleep through, which for a parent on the third Chipmunks film is a fair description of a Saturday afternoon.
Most critics find Chipwrecked tired and unimaginative, another round of familiar family messages and squeaky pop covers with little story or humour to carry it. Seven of the eleven reviews are negative and none is positive. Where there is praise, it clusters on the grown-ups: David Cross’s acerbic Ian is named more than once as the bright spot, and Jason Lee is credited for playing convincingly against the CGI chipmunks, with their exchanges singled out as the liveliest thing on screen.
The spread runs from grudging tolerance to outright hostility, and the gap is not wide. The kindest notices, from The Guardian and HeyUGuys, concede that small children will enjoy the cruise-ship antics and the musical numbers. Slant is the harshest, calling the film an endurance test. The songs divide critics most: The Hollywood Reporter hears a glimmer of inspiration in the Chipettes’ a cappella turns, while the Los Angeles Times finds the covers tame and uninspired.
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Read the full review →French finds the film more than endurable and says small children will enjoy it. He praises Jason Lee’s ability to play convincingly alongside the CGI characters.
Read the full review →Robinson finds the film jaded, with its familiar family messages and pop songs feeling tired. She singles out the entertaining exchanges between Jason Lee and David Cross as a bright spot.
Read the full review →Anderson finds the film largely inoffensive but unimaginative, with little story or humor. He singles out David Cross’s performance as the acerbic Ian as a bright spot.
Read the full review →The critic finds the film frantic, grating and short on charm or inventiveness. Some song choices provide a glimmer of inspiration, especially the Chipettes’ a cappella performances.
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