ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL — ★1/2 — Zachary Levi, Jason Lee, David Cross; rated PG (violence, vulgarity, slurs, brief drugs, mild profanity); in general release
Jason Lee got off easy. His character is pretty much written out of "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" within the first five minutes.
As for the rest of the live-action cast, they're left to flail away in this completely unnecessary follow-up to the surprising 2007 hit. Watching talented, funny people like Zachary Levi, David Cross and Wendie Malick go from one demeaning and painfully stupid situation to the next is excruciating.
And the film is so lame-brained and story-thin that it should have gone straight to video rather than being released in theaters — especially when there are much-better kids films out there (including "The Princess and the Frog").
In this "squeakquel," the title characters — computer-generated characters featuring the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney — have become worldwide stars. But their human "dad," Dave Seville (Lee), insists that they lead "normal" lives. He's even enrolled them in a local high school.
They're supposed to start their first day of school, but Dave is still laid up in a Parisian hospital as the result of an onstage mishap. So the chipmunks have been left in the less-than-capable hands of Dave's slacker cousin, Toby (Levi).
In the meantime, their arch-nemesis, sleazy promoter Ian Hawke (Cross), has reappeared and has revenge in mind. He's discovered three singing-and-dancing female chipmunks — the Chipettes (the voices of Amy Poehler, Anna Faris and Christina Applegate) — and plans to make them even-bigger stars than their male counterparts.
This is the same tiresome mix of slapstick comedy and occasional crude jokes (they're mostly flatulence related this time, rather than scatological).
So it's no wonder that Levi and Malick (who plays the school principal) barely make eye contact with the camera. Only the youngest and least discriminating of audiences could possibly be entertained by this film.
"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" is rated PG and features some violent content, most of it slapstick in nature (including pratfalls, bullying and vehicular mayhem), crude humor and references, derogatory language and slurs, brief drug content and references (sedatives and painkillers, including intravenous injections), and scattered mild profanity (mostly religiously based). Running time: 88 minutes.
e-mail: jeff@desnews.com