Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked – review

From the 1920s to the 1960s there were always novelty songs on the air and in the hit parade such as "Yes! We Have No Bananas" and "Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats" and "Get Out of Here With Your Boom-Boom" (aka "The Thing"). In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher picked Lita Roza's 1953 hit "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" as her all-time favourite single. Such innocent numbers were largely swept away in the 1960s by the second great wave of rock'n'roll.

One of the last novelty successes came when Ross Bagdasarian fiddled around with a tape machine and came up with the "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" at Christmas in 1958. Featuring three chirpily rasping woodland creatures subsequently christened Alvin, Simon and Theodore, the record became a massive hit. It launched a major industry involving radio, TV and the cinema and now managed by Bagdasarian's son, Ross. CGI chipmunks were brought together with live actors four years ago for Alvin and the Chipmunks, a major box-office success. The subtitle of the 2009 sequel – The Squeakquel – was the film's best joke, and now we have a third one, subtitled Chipwrecked, which squeaks for itself.

The sweet-natured Jason Lee, who like Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit really has the ability to live with CGI characters, reprises his role as the Chipmunks' adopted father. He takes them and the trio of cute female chipmunk singers known as the Chipettes on a cruise, and very soon their disruptive antics on board lead to an accident that sees them transported to a desert island. There, with Lee in pursuit, they live like the Swiss Family Robinson, encounter an attractive but deranged young woman who's a cross between Treasure Island's Ben Gunn and Cast Away's Tom Hanks, and cope with an erupting volcano before making their escape. Small kids will love it; I found it more than endurable.