Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

Directed by Mike Mitchell. Starring Jason Lee, David Cross, Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Amy Poehler G cert, general release, 87 min

UNLESS YOU’RE under the age of nine (in which case, welcome, this review is rated 12A), you have probably picked up this notice purely in the hope of reading unkind remarks about the world’s most indestructible troupe of squeaky singing rodents.

Fair enough. Alvin is such an infuriatingly smug and uncaring little lackwit that even the most hardcore vegetarian typically longs to see his little skull smashed open with a claw-hammer and the insides fed to a passing dog.

In this spirit, it’s difficult not to cheer on David Cross. You remember. He’s the manager who, in the first part, locked the Chipmunks in cages and exploited them ruthlessly. They got off lightly.

We have no beef with Theodore per se. And it’s unsporting to pick on a mammal as small as Simon. But mouthy, self-absorbed Alvin really ought to be “managed” by that terrifyingly huge Scottish impresario — he’s dead now, so he can’t sue — who used to pummel The Bay City Rollers with chair legs and force them to eat untreated sewage.

No matter. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwreckedis a heavyweight castrato addition to the Christmas tent-pole schedule. The last one made nearly half a billion dollars and registered above such heavyweights as X-Menand Star Trekin the end-of-year charts. So this, as far as 20th Century Fox's bankers are concerned, is the most important film released this month. Did somebody say lunch box and plush toy?

To be fair, it's probably the least objectionable of the three films to date. The Chipmunks get stranded on a desert island (insert your own joke here) and learn life lessons while dancing to best-forgotten 1990s pop tunes. Nobody eats poo this time around. There's a smattering of good, silly jokes, the fat one is pretty charming, and way older viewers can marvel at an explicit reference to a classic novel of the 1950s: as in Lord of the Flies, the castaways improbably light a fire with one young creature's glasses.

Sadly, taking the nods to Golding’s novel no further, the Chipmunks do not end up flinging Alvin off a cliff and ending his worthless life. Well, maybe next time. Monster, indeed.