Disney’s 1989 animated show “Chip ‘n Dale,” about two chipmunks-turned-detectives, has a lot of fans out there. It’s one of Disney’s most popular shows. But it was also kind of silly, kind of lame, almost pointless, and solely aimed at kids who find water fights funny.
Thanks to Disney, remakes are hot right now. So, even “Chip ‘n Dale” has been given a modern-day update, this time courtesy of Avika Schaffer, who has tackled a few elevated family comedies (“Hot Rod,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”). On paper, there’s not much potential, but the result is even safer and more slapdash than expected. It checks off every box Disney remakes appear to require: a hero, a villain, a million callbacks. It inexplicably spends more time promoting studio fare than it does fleshing out our marquee pair, piling on shoutout after shoutout like a cross-promotional game of Jenga.
But within this formula are a few glimmers of hope. Schaffer brings his signature snap, manifested here in the movie’s rapid pace. And Dan Gregor’s script contains unexpected shades of nuance and hilarity, especially when his meta-humor lands. But mostly, this is another chance for Disney to cash in on a product that wasn’t very good to begin with. One problem is that our heroes are advertised as “friends for life,” when really, they spend the entire time arguing and fighting over things that don’t make any sense. In juxtaposition, Finneas and Ferb spend every second of their missions bonding, laughing and learning, while Test and Dukey spend every second of their missions cracking each other up. Chip ‘n Dale don’t do any of those things.
Another problem is that, while the creators do their darndest to make an animated version of “Adaptation,” they’ve instead made an animated version of “Space Jam: Legacy”–a series of callbacks to IP that serves no other purpose than to remind you that they exist. Remember Sonic? Lumiere? The Looney Tunes? They’re all here in this self-reflexive riff, in which Chip (John Mulaney) and Dale (Andy Samberg) are middle-aged actors who have passed their primes. Chip sells boat insurance; Dale goes to comic book conventions. Things seem like they couldn’t get any worse until, one day, their former co-star Montey (Eric Bana) goes missing in Los Angeles.
In true meta-fashion, the plot of “Chip ‘n Dale” is now the plot of “Chip ‘n Dale,” as our heroes put on their detective caps and track down a racketeer (Will Arnett) who once starred in a Disney movie but now kidnaps actors to create more Disney movies. He leads the duo to a number of traps, a handful of cameos, and a surplus of in-jokes, not to mention a litany of cinematic styles, including a mix of live-action and hand-drawn animation. Unfortunately, not only do the results look too much like a 90’s TV show (there’s a fine line between homage and dated animation), but its very nature squeezes the life and joy out of “Chip ‘n Dale,” making it more like the loud and mean “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” not the memorable “Roger Rabbit.”
Still, whenever you’ve just about given up on Schaffer and his production, he comes up with a scene, like having Chip dance the Roger Rabbit with Roger Rabbit, that wins you over by working simply not overtly. The regrettable thing about adapting this material is not what it could have been, but what it is. Much like “Chip n’ Dale” (1989), it fails to make you believe in a friendship between two people who fight like a broken couple. You’d be better off watching “Roger Rabbit” instead. [C]