First Hit: Started reasonably well and faded to mediocrity within forty-five minutes.
It started out well enough and there were moments of laughter but it droned on and on and finally ended with a thud.
The premise of this film is based on the creation of their initial song (1958) and subsequent cartoon series. The story begins with the chipmunks having their home (tree) being cut down and sent to its new home in the foyer of an office building with them still in the tree.
Jason Lee, as Dave, is fired from his job and, in his being upset, takes a basket full of muffins from the office. While walking through the foyer, the chipmunks, needing to escape, see the basket and hop aboard as he passes by.
Dave, far too easily, accepts that there are talking chipmunks in the world and after they show him they can sing, he writes a song for them.
This happens to be the first and famous chipmunk song. Dave’s record agent Ian (Played by David Cross) thinks this is his ticket to fame. From this point on, the film really starts to deteriorate with the chipmunks becoming megalomaniacs and fully immersing themselves in toys and candy.
In the end they finally realize that Dave was their best friend and Dave realizes he loves the chipmunks and wants them as part of his family.
I found the computerized manifestation of the chipmunk voices to be overly processed, less compelling, and less clear than the original sped up human voices used in the original recordings.
Overall: Definitely a video for rent film. The little 6 year old boy sitting next to me got bored quickly which was very telling about the films power.