Generally the price of admission and popcorn limits our trips to the Cineplex to see first run movies. With Netflix and On Demand it’s almost just as easy to wait a few months. There are notable exceptions, Harry Potter for example, and can I buy my tickets for The Hobbit yet?
But this past weekend my wife, after having just returned from a weeklong business trip, left in a dash for Kentucky where our college sophomore son was parting with his appendix. We considering both going, but in the end I stayed home to care for the younger son and the livestock.
Needless to say the almost-12-year-old was disappointed that Mom was leaving again so soon. I needed a diversion and suggested a movie.
“Great, I want to see Chipwrecked.”
(wince)
I admit that when I was eight I had the Chipmunks singing “On Top of Spaghetti” on a 45 (you do the math). But these days when their Christmas song comes on, the only thing that makes me turn the dial quicker is ‘I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”
How about “War Horse?” Or “We still haven’t seen The Muppets.”
But there was no persuasion. So I braced myself thinking that surely it couldn’t be any worse than Squeaquel.
I. Was. Wrong
Not since the Yoda/Saruman smackdown in Star Wars: Episode I have I looked at my watch so many times and prayed for a movie to be over. [Editors note: My elder son corrected me. I was thinking of Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones. I told him I'd just been repressing painful memories.]
Here’s the basic idea. Dave takes the Chipmunks and the Chipettes on a vacation cruise. Nothing could go wrong, right?
Obviously you’ve never seen the Chipmunks.
Of course things went wrong and Dave, the Chipmunks and the Chipettes, along with Ian in a pelican suit end up stranded on a tropical island that just happens to be an active volcano ready to erupt. While there they meet a crazy woman who has been stranded there for years.
Toss in the requisite cultural references to Cast Away, Lost and even Charlie Sheen and you’ve got the whole movie.
I will confess that toward the end when it looked like the volcano was going to blow before they escaped that I caught myself tensing up before I had an “Oh good grief” moment before they actually escaped. I did not spoil the movie. It’s a kids movie, of course they get out.
Unfortunately for me, they escaped before I did.
There, I just saved you $10.00 and two hours of your life.
Not my life (or $12.00 in my case). My wife promised our older son that he could see Sherlock Holmes, and I got the privilege of taking my seven-year-old to see Chipwrecked. Well, he was amused.