FILM: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
VOICES: Justin Long, Jason Lee, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney
DIRECTION: Walt Becker


The persistence of Alvin and the Chipmunks as a cultural text is rather baffling. The mischievous singing rodents were created in 1958 for a novelty record, which makes them 57 years old. 
These are some tenacious chipmunks, refusing to be relegated to the pop-culture cast-off bin. The characters have starred in various animated series throughout the years, and were yanked into the millennium in 2007 with a film featuring live-action performers along with the chatty chipmunks. It’s been so successful that the fourth installment Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip comes as no surprise.
What to say about Road Chip? It is a film, it exists, it employs a lot of people — dancers, musicians, background extras, comedians and character actors, and most everyone seems to be having a lot of fun. There’s a wild and upbeat energy that is admittedly rather infectious. The names that appear in the opening credits are eye-popping: such quality performers as Tony Hale, Uzo Aduba and Retta pop up. And then there are some star-powered voice performances behind the Chipmunks and their female counterparts the Chipettes, too, which is curious, because you’d never know it was Justin Long or Anna Faris performing as Alvin or Jeannette, respectively.
The plot follows the Chipmunks from L.A. to Miami. Their “dad”, Dave (Jason Lee), is getting serious with lady doctor Samantha (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), who comes with a nightmare of a teenage son, Miles (Josh Green). Suspecting a proposal, and not wanting to unite their families, the Chipmunks and Miles set off to throw a monkey wrench in the plans. In so doing, they manage to unleash a crowd of animals onto a plane, earning the wrath of air marshal Suggs (Tony Hale), play a honky tonk saloon in Texas, join a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, and finally make it to Miami, where they wreak even more havoc.
Much of the script is organised around getting the Chipmunks to perform covers of Top 40 hits in their peculiar style, and the New Orleans jazz band version of Uptown Funk isn’t that bad. Otherwise it’s standard learning-to-love-your-enemy stuff, with lessons about friendship, loyalty and learning to say sorry, packaged in adolescent, fart-forward humor, relying on gender stereotypes and a bizarre acceptance of talking rodents. 
The comedic bright spot is Tony Hale, who is so fully committed in his role as the power-mad air marshal that he transcends the material and gives a legitimately funny performance.
The film is what it is. It’s juvenile and underdeveloped. The actors are clearly performing to motion-capture placeholders instead of talking chipmunks. There are relentless song breaks and references to “pizza toots”, and even more bafflingly, John Waters shows up, and Alvin references “Pink Flamingos”. But everyone seems to be having a ball, even if the material and the staying power of Alvin and pals doesn’t make sense. — TNS




Imaginative and 
visually appealing 




FILM: Capture the Flag 
VOICES: Lorraine Pilkington, Philippa Alexander,Rasmus Hardiker
DIRECTION: Enrique Gato


This family adventure revolves around Mike Goldwing, a 12-year-old surfer who flies to the moon to save the world.
Space travel runs in Goldwing’s family: both his father and grandfather were astronauts. When the brave and determined 12-year-old boy discovers that an eccentric billionaire plans to fly to the moon, steal its vast, valuable natural resources, and destroy the American flag planted by the Apollo XI astronauts during man’s historic moon landing, the countdown to a spectacular adventure begins.
Mike, teamed with his grandfather, best friends Amy and Marty, and a clever chameleon, blasts off on an incredible moon-bound mission, determined to thwart the billionaire’s evil plan, capture the flag, and reunite his family.
Capture the Flag is imaginative and visually appealing. The film features the theme of reconciliation. Both the animation and visuals are wonderful. — EC


Message of peace


By Soren Andersen



FILM: Snowtime! 
VOICES: Ross Lynch, Sandra Oh, Angela Galupo, Lucinda Davis
DIRECTION: Jean-Francois Pouliot


An impressive snow fort rises at the centre of Snowtime! Two lofty turrets tower above a white landscape that looks like it’s been slathered with vanilla frosting in this animated kids movie from Quebec-based filmmakers Jean-Francois Pouliot and Francois Brisson. (Normand Canac-Marquis and Paul Risacher wrote the screenplay.)
The fort is the creation of a band of schoolchildren in an out-of-the-way little hamlet. Bored during a two-week winter break from classes, they decide to break the tedium by dividing into two groups to play capture the fort.
They’re creative kids, turning snow shovels into snowball catapults and tubing into a snowball cannon. It seems like a harmless game at first, though one thoughtful girl cautions early on that “war is not fun”. Later, a set of twins chants in unison: “It’s just war. No reason to hurt anyone.”
But it is a war of sorts, and with war come casualties.
A remake of a 1984 live-action French-Canadian movie La Guerre des Tuques (The Dog Who Stopped the War), Snowtime! is by turns ribald (there’s a flatulent dog), boisterous (there’s charging through the snow with wooden swords wildly waved), tender (there’s a boy grieving quietly for a father killed in a real war) and, yes, tragic. 
And above all there’s a message, explicitly stated by the wisest young character: “A day without war is a victory for peace.”
Out of the mouths of babes ...  — The Seattle Times/TNS

DVDs courtesy: 
Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha