Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel is a 2009 American live-action/computer-animated musical comedy film and a sequel to the 2007 film Alvin and the Chipmunks, directed by Betty Thomas and it was distributed by 20th Century Fox, as well as the second live action/animated film starring Alvin and the Chipmunks and stars Zachary Levi, David Cross, and Jason Lee with the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Amy Poehler, Anna Faris and Christina Applegate. The film was released in theaters on December 23, 2009. A third film titled Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked was released on December 16, 2011.

Plot
Now in the care of Dave Seville's nephew (Zachary Levi), chipmunks Alvin, Simon, and Theodore take a break from pop-music stardom and return to school. Almost immediately, the tiny tunesmiths get the giant task of saving their school's music program by winning a battle-of-the-bands contest. Though the boys think winning it will be easy, romantic and musical sparks fly when they meet Brittany (Christina Applegate), Eleanor (Amy Poehler), and Jeannette (Anna Faris)-- also known as The Chipettes.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Like the first film, this film still has toilet humor, adult humor, and fart jokes despite being a family film. There are also some inappropriate moments such as Theodore lying to the hospitalized Dave on the phone that Toby's grandma (who is also hospitalized) is practicing her pole dancing (another word for a stripper) and the scene in the climax where Ian Hawke gets hit right in the balls by....a toy motorcycle.
 * 2) The redesigns of the Chipettes are even more unnecessary and poor than the redesigns of the Chipmunks.
 * 3) It barely has a story due to having many sub plots
 * 4) It is never explained where Jeanette got her glasses from, unlike Simon who got his glasses from a toy Santa in the first film.
 * 5) Some continuity errors. In the climax, Jeanette doesn't have her glasses when the Chipettes are locked up in the cage, but after they escape, her glasses are back on her without explanation.
 * 6) While David Cross still puts on a fun performance as Ian Hawke, he isn't quite as funny as he was in the first film.
 * 7) Dave Seville barely gets any screen time (due to being hospitalized) while the film mostly focuses on his nephew. And especially in the final scene of the film where Dave finally gets out of the hospital to put the Chipmunks and Chipettes to bed...only to get injured once again by a skateboard lying on the floor.
 * 8) Beatrice Miller, the owner of the Chipettes, is nowhere to be seen and Dave becomes the fill-out role for her, this caused unintentional incest, as it means that the Chipettes and the Chipmunks are love interests and siblings.
 * 9) It has too many pop culture references. It even shoves in a pointless and out of place cameo of Digger, the infamous mascot of NASCAR on Fox at the time.
 * 10) Even more usage of product placement than the first movie, such as the Nintendo Wii, UTZ products, VTech, Welsh Farms milk, Animal Planet, Gatorade, The Staples Center, FedEx, and others.
 * 11) While the CGI for the Chipmunks and the Chipettes still look pretty okay, the other uses of special effects are basically just the same from the first film with no improvements whatsoever.
 * 12) It has an even more poor grasp of the source material: The Chipettes and the Chipmunks don't seem to have a rivalry at each other and are both more friendly with each other unlike in the original source material.
 * 13) David Newman's musical score is even more generic and lackluster than in the first movie.
 * 14) Like the first film, they took whatever popular hit songs that were known at the time (e.x. "I Gotta Feeling'" by The Black Eyed Peas, "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé and "Hot n Cold" by Katy Perry) and butchered them with chipmunk singing.
 * 15) The acting, while slightly improved, is still pretty laughable, particularly from Jason Lee as Dave.
 * 16) Like with the first movie, Jason Lee pulls off Dave Seville's popular catchphrase "ALVIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!" poorly, as it sounds very watered down and not angry enough which sounds normally like a normal loud scream.
 * 17) Cringeworthy moments, like Ian Hawke dressing up like Brittney having Jeanette and Eleanor puppets and performing terribly on the Staples Center stage.
 * 18) Some cruel moments, like Ian threatening to barbecue the Chipettes at a Korean restaurant and in the airport scene when Toby accidentally makes his grandma in a wheelchair fall down the stairs and break her neck, that probably explains why he only cares about video games.
 * 19) In the scene with Alvin and Simon rescuing Theodore from the Wedge-tailed eagle, Simon mentions that the eagle's natural enemy is the Pygmy elephant. Even though that the two species never interacted with one another, nor that they lived together in the same environment and/or country. Just like it was mentioned in the first movie on the wiki, this just proves once again that Simon knows nothing about animals.
 * 20) False Advertising: Some scenes that were included in the trailers aren't in the movie.
 * 21) Terrible direction of Betty Thomas, who directed the much better Dr. Dolittle.
 * 22) *Not to mention, this is also the final film for Betty Thomas to be directed, thus causing her directorial career to end on a low note.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Some good jokes.
 * 2) Some songs, such as "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigners are surprisingly not butchered by the Chipmunk's singing.
 * 3) Zachary Levi is fine as Toby, but even at that, it’s clear that this isn’t his best performance.
 * 4) David Cross still does a fun performance as Ian Hawke, although it isn't quite as funny as the first film.
 * 5) As mentioned, the CGI effects on the Chipmunks and the Chipettes are pretty decent.
 * 6) It was the first film in the franchise to feature the Chipettes.
 * 7) A few cute moments.
 * 8) Despite being a blatant product placement for mh:awesomegames:Wii Sports, the scene where Alvin and Toby play mh:awesomegames:Wii Sports, but Alvin ends up breaking Dave's TV by throwing a Wii Remote at it is actually quite funny.
 * 9) Speaking of Bad Qualities #17, the scene where Ian pretends to be the Chipettes is so stupid some may find it funny, as a scene that's so bad it's good.

Reception
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel received worse reviews than the first film. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 20% based on reviews from 84 critics and an average rating of 3.88/10. The site's consensus is that, "This Squeakquel may entertain the kiddies, but it's low on energy and heavily reliant on slapstick humor.". On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 41 out of 100 based on 20 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A on scale of A to F.

Box office
Despite the negative reviews, it was the box office success, like the first film, grossed $443.1 million on a $70 million budget.

After the film had garnered $112 million worldwide at the box office over its first weekend, some critics were disappointed that it was more popular than other movies in wide release aimed at a family audience.

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