Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (originally Alvin and the Chipmunks 4) is a 2015 American live-action computer-animated road comedy film directed by Walt Becker and written by Randi Mayem Singer and Adam Sztykiel. The fourth and final installment in the Alvin and the Chipmunks live-action film series, and the sequel to 2011's Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, it stars Jason Lee, Tony Hale, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Josh Green, and Bella Thorne, with the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Kaley Cuoco (replacing Amy Poehler), Anna Faris and Christina Applegate. The film was released on December 18, 2015, by 20th Century Fox.

Plot
Music manager Dave is not only enjoying a burgeoning career, but a blossoming romance with Samantha, a beautiful doctor who works in the emergency room. Through a series of misunderstandings, the chipmunks start to believe that a marriage proposal is on the horizon. Dreading the thought of an antagonistic stepbrother, Alvin, Theodore, and Simon embark on a cross-country odyssey to prevent their best pal from ruining their lives.

Why This Is NO Road Chip (Bad Qualities)

 * 1) Just like the previous films, the comedy is mostly immature and sometimes inappropriate for its target audience, such as Alvin dipping peanuts in alcohol to get some squirrels to sleep, which is inappropriate for a kids movie because alcohol is dangerous to your health.
 * 2) *There was even a music video made to promote the film called (and we are not kidding) "Pizza Toots", which is all about flatulating from eating pizza.
 * 3) *Most of the humor in this film don't land well either, so the film doesn't know when to be funny at the right times.
 * 4) Tons of unnecessary pop-culture references like the previous films, including references to R-rated movies like the The Terminator and The Shining.
 * 5) It uses so many popular songs that are butchered with chipmunk singing, just like the previous three films.
 * 6) It totally ignores the events of Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, besides, Zoe doesn't appear and isn't even mentioned.
 * 7) *Furthermore, this fourth film erases so much that happened in the third film, for example the lesson Alvin learned about growing up enough to take care of himself in the third film is taught again to him in this fourth film as if he hadn't learned before.
 * 8) Speaking of which, the Chipettes are barely in the film as they only appear in the opening scene (which reveals that they are moving out to be judges for American Idol), somewhere in the middle (only for a few seconds), and in the third act where they and the Chipmunks sing "Home"; they were pretty much wasted in this movie.
 * 9) The film incorporates random cameos that don't serve much of a purpose; such as John Waters and Redfoo.
 * 10) *Speaking of Redfoo, he only appears in the film so he can promote his song "Juicy Wiggle".
 * 11) The soundtrack reuses one of the songs, "Conga", from the previous Chipmunks film.
 * 12) Weak acting by Tony Hale, Kimberly Williams Paisley and, you guessed it, Jason Lee, with the exceptions of Josh Green and Bella Thorne.
 * 13) "The Road Chip" is a bad pun.
 * 14) While Miles and Ashley are likeable, their romance side plot is pointless as it only gets two scenes in the beginning and end, giving the impression that the filmmakers suddenly just forgot that they wrote that in.
 * 15) While the premise is fine, its executed very poorly. Some scenes literally don't have effect to the film at all.
 * 16) Just like the previous films, Dave's "ALVINNN!!!" feels forced and weak and still sounds like some is up with his vocal cords (though oddly enough, it was pulled off better compared to the previous movies).
 * 17) James Suggs makes for not only a poor villain, but also the worst and most cartoonish character in the film series (even more unbearable than Zoe from the previous movie). Tony Hale's corny underacting is lackluster compared to David Cross's delightfully hammy performance, which is especially a shame since Cross doesn't appear in this film, making it the only installment without him.
 * 18) *Speaking of Suggs, his backstory of why he hates the Chipmunks is not only just sad and pathetic but downright ridiculous too. Apparently, the Christmas the year before, his girlfriend dumped him because he was a huge Chipmunk fan at the time, and as a result, they are put on the No Fly List (although to be a little bit fair, Theodore did let out a monkey, which then lets out several other animals which causes an emergency landing).
 * 19) **When Suggs references The Shining with this line "Here's Suggsy!", Simon responds by saying "he's like the Terminator!", which is an inaccurate pop-culture reference.
 * 20) *He's also a big reason why the movie fails to work as a whole.
 * 21) *Even worse, the movie chooses to make Dave and Samantha completely unaware of his actions towards the Chipmunks and Miles, leading to the movie having a massive misunderstanding that comes off as very annoying.
 * 22) Once again, Mark Mothersbaugh's musical score is still lackluster.
 * 23) Abysmal direction of Walt Becker.
 * 24) There is a scene in the film that serves as blatant product placement for Chuck E. Cheese's.
 * 25) False advertising: The red car (which appears in the theatrical poster and the cover of the DVD) that the Chipmunks are in never appears in the movie. Some could argue that it appeared when the Chipmunks were pretending to be hood ornaments, but then again, they never really utilize it outside of that scene.
 * 26) *Also, like the previous three films of the main characters' faces, it, once again, reuses the same pose, which is just lazy.
 * 27) Terrible ending: After Dave adopts the Chipmunks, they all go back home, only to see that the house is in shreds due to the squirrels’ chaos, causing Dave to yell "ALVIN!" yet again, which ends the film franchise in a horrible way.
 * 28) It was obvious that this was only made as a cash-grab, since the first three films had marketing while this had less, proving that Fox was even aware of this but decided to release anyway.
 * 29) There is a scene in the film where Theodore sings "mh:thebestmusicandsongswikia:Baby Got Back" of all songs, which is not only extremely cringeworthy, but also extremely inappropriate for a kids' film.

Good Qualities

 * 1) This film is almost unanimously agreed to be the least bad of the live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, tied with the original, and as such, it's a marginal improvement over prior installments.
 * 2) Jason Lee pulls off "ALVINNN!!!" better than he did in the last three films.
 * 3) The animation on the Chipmunks, Chipettes, and the special effects are a major step up from the predecessors, and the characters' designs stay a little more true to the original cartoon's designs with more fluid movements. This is because the animation is done by Weta Digital, since Rhythm and Hues Studios went bankrupt in 2013 prior to making this film.
 * 4) Some of the acting is good:
 * 5) *Josh Green does a very solid acting job as Miles.
 * 6) *Bella Thorne does a good job as Ashley.
 * 7) *Eleanor's new voice actor, Kaley Cuoco, does a pretty good job voicing her.
 * 8) *Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Christina Applegate and Anna Faris still do a very solid job as Alvin, Simon, Theodore, Brittany and Jeanette, respectively.
 * 9) There are some funny jokes, such as when Alvin tells John Waters not to judge his behavior because of the content of Waters' film Pink Flamingos.
 * 10) *There's even a funny use of toilet humor, as crazy as that sounds, when Simon wets himself and Miles says it's not his, prompting the TSA clerk to ask if he's "holding it for a friend".
 * 11) *There is also a funny scene where Miles calls Alvin a "stuffed Alvin doll" and treats Alvin like one, throwing him around like a piece of cheese.
 * 12) The musical numbers do have some sort of a purpose, and there is one thing this film does that the other live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks movies don't: write an original song, which is quite catchy as well as a heartwarming finale. Plus, they don't take popular songs by well-known artists and just give them chipmunk singing, with the exception of "Uptown Funk".
 * 13) The final scene with Dave adopting the Chipmunks is admittedly rather sweet, and would've ended the series on a high note if it weren't for the squirrels' chaos.
 * 14) The film does have improved pacing compared to the other films.
 * 15) Alvin, Simon, Theodore, Brittany, Jeanette, Eleanor, Miles and Ashley are likeable characters.
 * 16) *Miles is a surprisingly well-written new character and a great addition to the franchise, and his chemistry with the Chipmunks is quite entertaining, and their relationship is also decently developed.
 * 17) *Ashley, while pointless, is also tolerable.

Critical
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip received negative reviews from critics and audiences. A majority of the critics deem this film better than the previous one, but deem this film worse than the first two. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 15% based on 67 reviews and an average rating of 3.42/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "In some respects, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip is a marginal improvement over prior installments, although this in no way qualifies as a recommendation.". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 33 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale. It has a 4.9/10 on IMDb

Box office
Unlike previous films, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015) had a disappointing $ 234 million gross at the box office, the least successful film in the franchise, probably because of Fox's decision to debut the film on the exact same day that mh:greatestmovies:Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released.

Trivia

 * This is somehow the only movie in the series to not get a tie-in game unlike the previous 3 movies, likely due to the fact that the trend died off after 2014 and became a mobile only thing.
 * However, Roblox does sponsored this movie for the event, Roblox Holiday. Like the movie itself, the event received mainly enormous negative reviews from users, due to the catalog items being promotional, and the event has almost nothing to do with Christmas. Others have criticized it for the little-to-no effort and sponsor ROBLOX is promoting. Users also criticized the event's games for lazily hiding the prizes, making many of them believe they are very simple to obtain and lacking any sort of challenge.
 * The movie came out the exact same day as mh:greatestmovies:Star Wars: The Force Awakens. which was considered by many to be the most anticipated film of 2015 and even went on to gross over $2 billion, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the 2010s alongside Avengers Endgame in 2019.

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