Fish and Chipmunk.

A struggling songwriter named Dave Seville finds success when he comes across a trio of singing chipmunks: mischievous leader Alvin, brainy Simon, and chubby, impressionable Theodore.

Jason Lee: Dave

When I finally got around to seeing this film recently, it turned out to be exactly what I predicted... yet another Hollywood CG/live-action rehash of an established cartoon franchise. Nothing special or memorable whatsoever. Designed in every way possible to appeal to very young children and very immature adults, making heavy use of comedic devices such as farts, poo-eating, and the size of Theodore's butt.

Alvin and the Chipmunks would bother me a lot less if it weren't such an obvious step down for the cartoon series. Even their characters I found were drastically altered, for the negatively oppressed, for this story. While history has denoted, each one of the three, have had a very distinct personality.
In this film version, they all behaved like immature, smart-alecky children with too much energy, constantly bouncing erratically off the walls. It especially bothered me to see Simon portrayed in this way... He's supposedly the smart one of the trio, a serious nerd who acts as the "straight man" to Alvin's crazy antics. But here he's pretty much a clone of the other two. One joke in the film even implies that Simon only thinks he's intelligent, but really isn't... and honestly if I had never heard of the Chipmunks before seeing this film, I would have agreed.

One of the other irritations that Alvin & the Chipmunks continues to give us, is the money obsessed manager, played by David Cross. Uncle Ian, is the obvious villain of the piece, the temptation aspect of the whole affair. When Dave falls out with the Chipmunks, its rich Ian whom looks after the trio. For a start his whiny voice and whimsical philosophy on fame and commercialized success in pop, also proves sickening as well as annoying. He uses the Chipmunks to make big bucks, although how any one can actually consider Chipmunk singing music is beyond my reasoning. Despite all these whispering jaunts, his villainy proves to be one of the most energized things in the film. Ian and some squirrels was amusing, to say the least, in the credits.

In my opinion, this whole affair, is just another obvious cash makind device, like Garfield was, and I'm more than a little disappointed, the cartoons being far superior to any CGI creation. The fact that it's a children orientated movie doesn't excuse its many flaws... To excuse a stupid movie that degrades a classic franchise, just because it's for children is insulting to children and adults alike, in equal measure.
Any child would deserve something more intelligent than this offering.