Rama’s SCREEN

What’s a holiday without a good dose of surprise, right? I expected this movie to stink real bad but what I got was my childhood memories of watching the cartoon series brought back to me in bigger screen. I don’t care what anyone else says, ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS is the surprise of the season. Christmas just isn’t complete this year without… Christmas songs by these three adorable CGI characters. I can’t believe I just said that, but it’s true, these guys are way cool.

Dave is a songwriter who’s not that talented at writing songs. One messy night he meets three talking chipmunks and his luck is about to change. His friend, the music producer, has an evil plan to take the chipmunks for himself and make fortune out of them at all cost.

I think what really impresses me the most is how the visual effects people made these beloved characters look irresistibly cute. Families would love them fury singing animals. Even when they’re rowdy and messing up everything around them, they still come up Rock Stars. There’s one part where there’s this chase scene between the security guards and the chipmunks and Alvin said ‘Yippie Kay Yay, Mamacita!’
Justin Long who did the voice for Alvin said that it was a tribute to Bruce Willis’ famous Die Hard catchphrase because Justin himself was in the movie Live Free or Die Hard.
Smart move, man!

Jason Lee (TV’s My Name Is Earl) is Dave, the human character who becomes sort of a friend/father figure to the parentless chipmunks. His interaction with the chipmunks reminds me of Bob Hoskin’s performance in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
David Cross, a funny actor famous from the most hilarious comedy TV series that unfortunately only a few of us watched ‘Arrested Development’, plays the bad guy, the money-driven music producer who’d force the chipmunks to work 24/7 in the name of fortune.

The storyline deals with the negative side of fame and fortune. About the ugly things that could appear when you’re doing it not for the music, but for the money.
And of course, the importance of family and what it means to be a part of one.

Some of you who are older might find this movie not even worth watching on DVD. Fair enough, but if you have kids, nephews and nieces or if you grew up watching the cartoon series, then there’s no time like now to take them to watch this movie. They laugh, they’ll say ‘Aww’, they’ll rock to the music, they’ll love it.
Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? For once it’s a chance to be selfless and in the words of Reverend Lovejoy’s wife from the Simpsons, ‘Think of the children’.

Bottomline, Alvin and The Chipmunks Rock and all you haters can go be a scrooge!

* Place the cursor on the picture below to check my rating for this film