Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

You know what’s really hard to animate? Fur. Think about it. You have all these individual strands of hair that can move independently of each other yet they need to move a certain way to look believable. It takes some skill to be able to control fur on an animated character. There’s also something of a challenge when the characters are less than a foot high and they are constantly dwarfed by regular-sized human beings and objects. If those characters are the star, then a director must constantly be thinking about camera angles and tricks to make sure those characters are the center of attention all the time. It takes a fair amount of creativity to think about types of shots that you wouldn’t normally have to consider.

Why am I talking about computer-generated fur and shot composition? Because that’s what was keeping me interested during this film. Rhythm and Hues did a great job animating all the chipmunks and gave them some great physical personality and amusing scenes (including a nice chase sequence with remote controlled helicopters and motorcycles), but all in all, nothing else in the movie really kept me interested. There is a character, Toby (Zachary Levi) who is the chipmunks’ guardian, that is irresponsible, unfocused, clumsy and an avid video gamer, and I could not even muster any animosity toward the filmmakers because it was such an obvious and tired stereotype (also a bit hypocritical as there will most likely be a videogame tie-in coming out).

If the filmmakers meant for this to be a film that would appeal to all ages, then they didn’t succeed. I had DJ with me when I saw it and he thought it was really funny. So if your a Chipmunks fan or a kid, you will probably enjoy this film better than I did and you’ll probably be buying it for them when it’s released.