The Chipmunks are shipwrecked, and it is not a good thing. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked takes the music-bubble machine and the singing-five-voices trick to a tropical island where the jokes stop coming and the plot starts running on empty.
This is the third film in the live-action series, and it is built on a simple premise: the Chipmunks and their chipette counterparts jump off a cruise ship and end up stranded on a Pacific island, where they meet a castaway named Zoe and deal with a biting spider that turns one of them into an alternate personality called Simone. The film wants to be a comedy, a musical, and a cash register, and none of those ambitions take. What it delivers instead is a movie that treats the audience like the people it describes.
Trailer, via 20th Century Studios.
A Cruise Ship, A Water Gun Fight, And A Fall
The comedy starts on a cruise ship bound for the International Music Awards. Alvin, the scatterbrained leader, leads a water gun fight in the adult section, which forces Dave to apologize to the captain at dinner. The other Chipmunks and Chipettes split up:
- the Chipettes sneak into the ship’s dance club
- Alvin and Simon head to the casino
- Dave runs into his old boss, Ian Hawke, who now works as the safety officer dressed as a pelican
Ian warns the captain if the group causes more trouble.
The next day, Alvin ties the others to a kite and strong winds carry them into the Pacific. Dave tries to use a hang-glider to find them, but Ian stops him, and both of them end up stranded at sea. The Chipmunks land on a deserted island where they meet Zoe, and the film’s first real spark is the discovery that their new home is not as empty as it looks.
Zoe’s Treehouse And The Spider Bite
Zoe lives in a treehouse, and it is there that the story’s central problem begins. Eleanor injures her ankle, and Simon is bitten by a spider whose venom causes a drastic personality shift. Simon believes he is a French adventurer named “Simone,” and the film spends the rest of its runtime trying to figure out what to do with this new character. The setup is clever, but the execution is not.
The spider bite should have been the engine of the film. Instead, the movie treats it as a punchline and moves on. Zoe takes Simone, Jeanette, Eleanor, and Theodore to a lake, where Simone discovers a cave hidden behind a waterfall and retrieves a gold bracelet, which he gives to Jeanette. The film then spends the next stretch of its running time with the Chipmunks building rafts and preparing to escape, but it keeps circling back to the same three or four jokes about the island’s dangers.
The Island’s Real Danger
The island is not deserted. The film spends its middle stretch establishing that the island is full of things that want to hurt the Chipmunks, but none of it lands as comedy so much as it lands as a kind of punishment. The jokes about the dangers are repeated so often that they lose their point. The film’s sense of danger is not real; it is just a way to keep the Chipmunks from reaching the water.
The climax comes when Brittany and Alvin spot the island’s active volcano. The Chipmunks build a raft to escape, but while Jeanette and Simone look for food, Simone is knocked unconscious and Jeanette is abducted. When Simon wakes up, he returns to his original personality. The plot twist about the character is a genuine moment of surprise, but it is buried under a pile of repeated jokes and half-finished gags.
The Voices Of The Chipmunks
The singing is the one thing the film gets right. Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Amy Poehler, Anna Faris, and Christina Applegate all return to voice the Chipmunks and Chipettes, and their chemistry is still present even as the script around them falls apart. Ross Bagdasarian Jr. provides Alvin’s singing voice, Steve Vining provides Simon’s, and Janice Karman provides Theodore’s, with Frank Welker providing the snarling voice for Brittany. It is a strong cast doing the best with what they are given.
The live-action performers fare less well. Jason Lee plays Dave, David Cross plays Ian, and Jenny Slate plays Zoe. None of them get a chance to do much with the material. Ian is introduced as a former boss dressed as a pelican, which could have been a rich character, but the film never returns to him. Zoe is the castaway who finds the Chipmunks, and the film never gives her a chance to be more than a plot device. The whole movie could be told from the perspective of the Chipmunks alone, and it would not lose a thing.
The Script’s Weakness
The problem with Chipwrecked is that it never decides what kind of movie it wants to be. It is pitched as a comedy, but the jokes are thin and repeated. It is pitched as a musical, but the songs are placed between jokes rather than carrying the story. It is pitched as a family film, but the island’s dangers are played for cheap scares rather than anything close to suspense. And it is pitched as a cash register, which is the only ambition it actually achieves.
The film’s central joke about the island being full of dangers is stated at least three times in its 87-minute running time. The movie is a collection of set pieces, not a story. There is no arc, no tension, no reason for any of it to matter. The Chipmunks and Chipettes are stranded, they find Zoe, they meet some dangers, they escape. The end.
The Box Office And What Happened Next
Chipwrecked was released on December 16, 2011, and it was a hit. Despite receiving generally negative reviews from critics, the film grossed $349.1 million against its budget of $75–80 million. A fourth film, The Road Chip, was released in 2015.
The film’s success was built on the same formula that has always carried these films: the five singing voices, the callbacks to the original cartoon, and the licensed pop songs. The story, however, is a weak link, and it shows.
The film’s score is low, which is our own assessment of the film’s quality, not a figure borrowed from another outlet. We arrived at it by weighing the film’s strengths — a strong singing cast, a few genuine moments of surprise — against its weaknesses — a thin plot, repeated gags, a failure to build any real tension. The result is a film that is pleasant to watch for a few minutes but forgettable by the end.
Where It Falls Short
The film’s failure is not that it is a failure of execution. The problem is the script itself. There is no payoff to the island’s dangers, no reason for the spider bite to matter, no arc for the characters. The Chipmunks and Chipettes are stranded, they meet Zoe, they escape. The end.
The songs are placed between gags rather than carrying the story. The jokes are stated at least three times. The island is full of dangers, and the film never gives you a reason to care about them.
There is nothing here that the first two films did not already do better. The premise was a good one — Chipmunks and Chipettes stranded on a tropical island — but the execution turns it into something hollow. The singing is the only thing that carries the film, and even that is not enough to save it.
Chipwrecked is a failure of ambition. It is a film that knows exactly what its audience wants — the five singing voices, the licensed pop songs, the callbacks to the cartoon — and it gives them only half of what they ask for. The other half, a story worth telling, is missing.
The film is a cash register, not a work of art. It is a machine, not a movie. It is pleasant to watch for a few minutes, but it is forgettable by the end.
Key Facts
- Film: Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)
- Runtime: 87 minutes
- Director: Mike Mitchell
- Written by: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger
- Genres: Comedy, Fantasy, Family, Music, Animation
- Cast: Justin Long as Alvin (voice), Matthew Gray Gubler as Simon (voice), Jesse McCartney as Theodore (voice), Amy Poehler as Eleanor (voice), Anna Faris as Jeanette (voice), Christina Applegate as Brittany (voice), Alan Tudyk as Simone (voice)
- Gross: $349.1 million
- Budget: $75–80 million
The film has its moments, but they are not enough to save it. The singing is strong, the cast is capable, and the premise is a good one — but the script is hollow. Chipwrecked is a machine, not a movie, and it is a machine that has run out of fuel.
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