If nothing else, this winter’s Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Road Chip could be seen as Hollywood’s most effective form of birth control yet – the prospect of being dragged by the young’uns into 20th Century Fox’s fourth movie about an obnoxious trio of shrill, childish rodents is likely more than enough to scare some people off parenthood for good.
The first trailer for The Road Chip is pretty much as awful as you’d expect, with an aggravatingly serious voice-over delivering the beyond-lame title pun and the chipmunks squeaking out the lines to “Uptown Funk” as nearby humans inexplicably throw their hands up in dance without covering their ears and howling in pain (I guess no one really cares about making this stuff believable). And then there’s a wearier-than-ever Jason Lee half-heartedly bellowing the closest thing this franchise has to a catchphrase. Ugh.
Regardless, the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise has earned $1.1 billion for Fox, so it’s hard to fault the execs for wanting to pull in more green with a contrived fourquel. The blame is really on parents who plunk their kids down in front of this schlock instead of staying at home and showing them a movie that doesn’t feature painfully Auto-tuned covers of hit songs. The plot synopsis for The Road Chip might be enough to convince those considering it to instead go see literally anything else:
Through a series of misunderstandings, Alvin, Simon and Theodore come to believe that Dave is going to propose to his new girlfriend in New York City…and dump them. They have three days to get to him and stop the proposal, saving themselves not only from losing Dave but possibly from gaining a terrible stepbrother.
That’s right – classic mixups lead to road trip shenanigans, until the chipmunks tearfully reunite with their mentor and squeak out a happy tune as the credits roll. There, I’ve filled you in on the plot and saved your eardrums in the process. No need to thank me, community service is a responsibility. Still, if you’re undeterred, The Road Chip opens December 23.
