Chipmunks take a fast-paced but forgettable Road Chip

Though the first three Fox-owned Chipmunk films took in more than a billion dollars worldwide, it will take a devoted fan base to rescue Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip from a financial flat tire.

In the fourth Chipmunks installment, which opened this weekend against Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Dave (Jason Lee) is a music producer and caretaker of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. Recently, Dave has been dating Samantha (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), and things are getting serious. But Samantha’s teenage son, Miles (Josh Green), picks on the Chipmunks from the moment he meets them.

The Chipmunks and Miles stay behind in Los Angeles when Samantha accompanies Dave on a business trip to Miami, where the Chipmunks and Miles believe Dave will propose to Samantha. The Chipmunks fear gaining a mean stepbrother, and Miles doesn’t want a new father. (About halfway through the film, the story takes a briefly serious turn when, through tears, Miles explains why.)

The Chipmunks and Miles agree to put aside their differences and work together to derail the engagement. They board a plane to Miami, but it has to make an emergency landing in Texas when the Chipmunks release the passengers’ pets from their carriers in the plane’s cargo hold. The Chipmunks’ antics put a gung-ho but cornball air marshal, Agent Suggs (Tony Hale), on their trail for the rest of the film.

With little money, the Chipmunks and Miles race over land toward Miami with Suggs in hot pursuit. Along the way, they get into more trouble. But they also take time out for song-and-dance numbers at a house party, a saloon, and a New Orleans jazz parade. The entire movie is a sequence of music videos held together by slapdash shenanigans and cutesy but forgettable chitchat. There is one good line, though. Suggs steps up to a Goliath-sized, leather-clad bar patron and informs him dryly, “I have reason to believe there’s a fugitive chipmunk in your beard.”

The camaraderie causes Miles and the Chipmunks to bond, but they must take a different tack after an engagement ring twist.

The upbeat Road Chip (rated PG for some mild rude humor) slips in a message common to our times, but perhaps a first for interspecies relationships: “We might not be the family in the photo that comes with the frame.” But the film also sneaks in several close-ups of young women dancing in low-cut outfits. The computer graphics almost always mesh smoothly with the live action, but there are some noticeable instances of human eyes not quite pointing toward their intended animated chipmunk target.

Throughout the film, the Chipmunks repeat their battle cry: “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.” Having been amply warned now, I will take their advice and not mess with any other Chipmunk movies.