Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (originally Alvin and the Chipmunks 4) is a 2015 American live-action computer-animated family comedy film directed by Walt Becker and written by Randi Mayem Singer and Adam Sztykiel. The fourth and final installment in the Alvin and the Chipmunks live-action film series, and the sequel to 2011's Mh:awfulmovies:Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, it stars Jason Lee, Tony Hale, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Josh Green, and Bella Thorne, with the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Kaley Cuoco (replacing Amy Poehler), Anna Faris and Christina Applegate. The film was released on December 18, 2015, by 20th Century Fox.

Plot
Music manager Dave is not only enjoying a burgeoning career, but a blossoming romance with Samantha, a beautiful doctor who works in the emergency room. Through a series of misunderstandings, the chipmunks start to believe that a marriage proposal is on the horizon. Dreading the thought of an antagonistic stepbrother, Alvin, Theodore, and Simon embark on a cross-country odyssey to prevent their best pal from ruining their lives.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Just like the previous films, the comedy is mostly immature and sometimes inappropriate for its target audience, such as Alvin dipping peanuts in alcohol to get some squirrels to sleep.
 * 2) *There was even a music video made to promote the film called (and we are not kidding) "Pizza Toots", which is all about farting from eating pizza.
 * 3) Tons of unnecessary pop-culture references like the previous films, including references to R-rated movies like the The Terminator and The Shining.
 * 4) It uses so many popular songs that are butchered with chipmunk singing, just like the previous three films.
 * 5) Like the previous films, the characters are still unlikable.
 * 6) It totally ignores the events of Mh:awfulmovies:Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, besides, Zoe doesn't appear and isn't even mentioned.
 * 7) *Furthermore, this fourth film erases so much that happened in the third film, for example the lesson Alvin learned about growing up enough to take care of himself in the third film is taught again to him in this fourth film as if he hadn't learned before.
 * 8) The film incorporates random cameos that don't serve much of a purpose; such as John Waters and Redfoo.
 * 9) *Speaking of Redfoo, he only appears in the film so he can promote "Juicy Wiggle".
 * 10) Just like the previous films, Dave's "ALVIIIIIIN!!" scream feels forced and weak and still sounds like he has a hoarse throat and a problem with his vocal cords (though oddly enough, it was pulled off better compared to the previous movies).
 * 11) The soundtrack reuses one of the songs, "Conga", from the previous Chipmunks film.
 * 12) Weak acting by Tony Hale, Kimberly Williams Paisley and, you guessed it, Jason Lee.
 * 13) The title Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip sounds like a bad pun.
 * 14) Miles develops a crush on Ashley Green, a singer that Dave is a producer for. This only gets two scenes in the beginning and end, giving the impression that the filmmakers suddenly just forgot that they wrote that in.
 * 15) While the premise is fine, it's executed very poorly. Some scenes literally don't have effect to the film at all.
 * 16) Kaley Cuoco replaces Amy Poehler as Eleanor (which was left unexplained behind the scenes), but she gets so little screen time and lines that the switch isn't even noticeable.
 * 17) *On that related topic, Brittany and Jeanette also barely get any screen time and lines, and they along with Eleanor aren't seen again until the climax of the film. It is also never explained what happened to them after they and the Chipmunks sing the final song number in the club.
 * 18) James Suggs makes for a poor villain. Tony Hale's corny underacting is not entertaining compared to David Cross's delightfully hammy performance, which is especially a shame since Cross doesn't appear in this film, making it the only installment without him.
 * 19) *Speaking of Suggs, his backstory of why he hates the Chipmunks is not only just sad and pathetic but downright ridiculous too. Apparently, last Christmas, his girlfriend dumped him because he was a huge Chipmunk fan at the time, and as a result, they are put on the No Fly List (although to be a little bit fair, Theodore did let out a monkey, which then lets out several other animals which causes an emergency landing).
 * 20) When Suggs references The Shining with this line "Here's Suggsy!", Simon responds by saying "he's like the Terminator!", which is a wrong pop-culture reference.
 * 21) Once again, Mark Mothersbaugh's musical score is still lackluster.
 * 22) Abysmal direction of Walt Becker.
 * 23) There is a scene in the film that serves as blatant product placement for Chuck E. Cheese's.
 * 24) False advertising: The red car (which appears in the theatrical poster and the cover of the DVD) that the Chipmunks are in never appears in the movie. Some could argue that it appeared when the Chipmunks were pretending to be hood ornaments, but then again, they never really utilize it outside of that scene.
 * 25) *Also, like the previous three films of the main characters' faces, it, once again, reuses the same pose, which is just lazy.
 * 26) It was obvious that this was only made as a cash-grab, since the first three films had marketing while this had less, proving that Fox was even aware of this but decided to release anyway.

Good Qualities

 * 1) This film is almost unanimously agreed to be the best (or the least bad) of the live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, and it's a marginal improvement over prior installments.
 * 2) The animation on the Chipmunks is a major step up from the predecessors and stay a little more true to the original cartoon's designs.
 * 3) There are some funny jokes, such as when Alvin tells John Waters not to judge his behavior because of the content of Waters' film Pink Flamingos.
 * 4) *There's even a funny use of toilet humor, as crazy as that sounds, when Simon wets himself and Miles says it's not his, prompting the TSA clerk to ask if he's "holding it for a friend".
 * 5) *There is also a funny scene where Miles calls Alvin a "stuffed Alvin doll," and treats Alvin like one, throwing him around like a piece of cheese. Click here to watch the full airport scene if you like.
 * 6) The musical numbers do have some sort of a purpose, and there is one thing this film does that the other live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks movies don't: write an original song, which is quite catchy as well as a heartwarming finale. Plus, they don't take popular songs by well-known artists and just give them chipmunk singing, with the exception of "Uptown Funk".
 * 7) The final scene with Dave adopting the Chipmunks is admittedly rather sweet.
 * 8) The film does have improved pacing compared to the other films.
 * 9) The development between the Chipmunks and Miles is handled quite well.
 * 10) Josh Green does a pretty good job as Miles, and he has some entertaining chemistry with the Chipmunks.

Critical
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip received negative reviews from critics and audiences. A majority of the critics deem this film better than the previous one, but deem this film worse than the first two. On Rotten Tomatoes, The film holds a 15% "rotten" rating. The critical consensus stating: "In some respects, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip is a marginal improvement over prior installments, although this in no way qualifies as a recommendation.". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 33 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Box Office
Unlike previous films, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015) had a disappointing $ 234 million gross at the box office, the least successful film in the franchise, probably because of Fox's decision to debut the film on same exact day, month and year that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released.

Trivia

 * 1) This is somehow the only movie in the series to not get a tie-in game unlike the previous 3 movies.
 * 2) A fifth film was on Fox’s plans, but Alvin and the Chipmunks 5 was cancelled before anything was ever materialized.
 * 3) The movie came out the exact same day as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was considered by many to be the most anticipated film of 2015 and even went on to gross over $2 billion, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the 2010s alongside Avengers Endgame in 2019.

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