Alvin and the Chipmunks

Alvin and the Chipmunks

The last sight of “Alvin and the Chipmunks” are three singing chipmunks. There is a surprise after that, in the closing credits when we get to see the covers of all the Alvin & company albums and CDs. I stopped counting at 10. It is beyond me why anyone would want to listen to one whole album of those squeaky little voices, let alone 10. Maybe “The Chipmunk Song,” for its fleeting novelty. But “Only You”?

But there are Alvin and the Chipmunks fans. Their latest album rates 4.5/5 at iTunes, where I sampled their version of “Only You” against the original by The Platters and immediately downloaded “The Platters Greatest Hits.” I suppose people even impatiently pre-order them, which is a strong vote for electronically altered voices by interchangeable singers.

The film is dedicated to Ross Bagdasarian Sr., “who was crazy enough” to dream them up. That’s about right.

Although it takes place in the present day, when the real (or “real”) Chipmunks already have a back catalog bigger than Kimya Dawson’s, this movie tells how they become rock stars and almost get burned out on the rock circuit. Jason Lee stars as Dave Seville, who accidentally brings them home in a basket of muffins, discovers they can talk and soon finds himself shouting “Alvin!” at the top of his lungs.

David Cross plays Ian, the hustling tour promoter who signs them up and takes them on the road, where they burn out and he suggests they start syncing with dubbed voices; now we’re getting into Alice in Wonderland territory because of course they are dubbed voices in the first place; indeed; metaphysics of dubbing dubbed chipmunks who exist in the real world as animated representations of real chipmunks is how did this sentence begin?

Whatever it was, “Alvin and the Chipmunks” is about as good as a movie with these characters can probably be, and I know that I am the wrong audience for this movie. Indeed, I am sure some readers will throw it up to me like I liked the “Garfield” movie better. Yes, but Garfield didn’t even sing, and he was dubbed by Bill Murray.

Watch Alvin and the Chipmunks For Free On Gomovies.