Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel is a 2009 American live-action/CGI comedy film and sequel to Alvin and the Chipmunks starring Jason Lee, Zachary Levi, David Cross, and Wendie Malick. The film also stars the voices of
Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler,
Jesse McCartney, Honor Society,
Christina Applegate,
Anna Faris, and
Amy Poehler.
The film features Alvin and the Chipmunks and their female counterparts, The Chipettes. It was directed by Betty Thomas, written by Jon Vitti and Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger, and distributed by 20th Century Fox, and produced by Regency Enterprises and Bagdasarian Productions. It was originally scheduled to open on March 19, 2010, but it was moved up to a December 23, 2009, release instead. In Australia, it was released on December 26.
Critical reception
The film received mostly negative reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 21% of 76 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 3.9 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 17%, based on a sample of 18 reviews. The site's general consensus is that "This Squeakquel may entertain the kiddies, but it's low on energy and heavily reliant on slapstick humor." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 41 based on 20 reviews.
Some reviews were positive such as Joe Leydon writing for Variety who called it "a frenetic but undeniably funny follow-up that offers twice the number of singing-and-dancing rodents in another seamless blend of CGI and live-action elements." Writing for Common Sense Media, Jeffrey M. Anderson, who awarded the film 3/5 stars, wrote "The songs are fun, the chipmunks are likable, and the movie seems to have its heart in the right place."
Betsy Sharkey of Los Angeles Times commented on Betty Thomas's direction, saying that she brings "a light campy touch as she did in 1995's The Brady Bunch Movie." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly graded the film a C-. Gleiberman wrote in his review with this question: "Will kids eat up this cutely fractious claptrap? Of course they will. They'll eat up whatever you put in front of them. But that doesn't make The Squeakquel good for them." Sue Robinson from Radio Times said that "even if there's little here for older viewers to enjoy, youngsters will love the slapstick action and catchy soundtrack."
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. Richard Corliss of Time wrote that families "could have taken the cherubs to The Princess and the Frog or Disney's A Christmas Carol, worthy efforts that, together, took in only about a fifth of the Chipmunks' revenue in the same period."
Box office
The film grossed $18.8 million on the day, ranking #1, another $7.9 million on Thursday, and $48.8 million over its first weekend, for $75.5 million in the United States and Canada and $36.5 million in other territories - and a worldwide total of $112 million. As of January 24, 2010, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel made $204,237,000 in the United States and in Canada and $162,337,800 in other territories which makes a total of $366,574,800 worldwide.
Movie details courtesy of
Wikipedia
