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Review: New Chip ‘N Dale Movie Imitates Hilarious Classic Games, Cartoons

    When there is danger!
    enlarge † When there is danger!

    Disney

    Traditionally, when Disney movies skip theaters and go straight to video, it’s not a good sign. That’s changed somewhat as the Disney+ content beast needs to be fed, but the company still differentiates between “triple-A television” like The Mandalorian and “cheap, kid-friendly movies” like the Air Bud series.

    Hence today’s Disney+ premiere Chip ‘N Dale: Lifeguards—a PG-rated reboot with few prior press releases – left us assuming the worst, despite its comedic origins. The Lonely Island (“Lazy Sunday”, “Mother Lover”) is all over the film’s credits, but how much of the groundbreaking Saturday Night Live work can survive the family-friendly demands of a Disney+ direct launch?

    I’m here with surprisingly good news. Chip ‘N Dale is a confident comedy that families will appreciate. Plus, it knows exactly when and how to play with references to 80s and 90s gaming, cartoons, and pop culture without losing character development and physical comedy.

    Time To Male Strippers: Just A Few Minutes (But PG Rated, We Swear)

    As for the aesthetics of the two characters, even the depiction of elements such as motion blur is different between the pair. The result looks pretty cool in motion.
    enlarge † As for the aesthetics of the two characters, even the depiction of elements such as motion blur is different between the pair. The result looks pretty cool in motion.

    Disney

    The film is Disney’s best ever mix of live-action, CGI and hand-drawn animation, with lead characters Chip (voiced by John Mulaney) and Dale (voiced by Andy Samberg) each offering different variations of modern animation. Chip combines 3D rendering with a cel-shaded filter, hand-drawn touches and intentionally reduced animation speeds to look like a living 2D cartoon, complete with tasteful touches of ambient occlusion and light reflection.

    Dale, as part of a running gag in the film, has had “CGI surgery” and emerges as a fully 3D-rendered chipmunk. The film starts by zooming in on his disproportionate eyes and other creepy craziness for comedic effect, but this soon softens, and as the film approaches emotional, kid-friendly connections between the chipmunks, Dale ends up looking pretty good, with his animated, shiny eyes that pop out.

    Mild spoilers ahead, but we keep in mind how easily some of the jokes in this movie get spoiled.

    • Dale begins with ambitions for a solo career.

    • Chip opens the film, immediately tired of Dale’s nonsense.

    Samberg’s opening narration suggests that the phrase “Chip ‘N Dale” probably reminds viewers of a few things — and then a PG-rated image of male strippers flashes. The film’s script and visual jokes are masterful at making similar references to children’s heads or blinking and you’ll miss them in the gaming and cartoon world.

    The movie’s most weepy things skewer beloved Disney properties and Disney rivals right. So much so that I watched the entire credits to see exactly who was being thanked for allowing their biggest franchises to be passive-aggressively mocked or downright, er, fused into this movie. While a few jokes go back to the earliest days of Disney’s movie catalog, a majority will end up in the room for all parents who grew up in the Gen-X or older millennial camps. That’s probably not surprising for a movie whose main characters come from the “Disney Afternoon Collection” of characters from the late ’80s. If you can imagine a cartoon that came up or competed with Disney around that time, it will probably show up here in obvious or subtle ways.

    The duo, seen here eating each other's sandwiches.
    enlarge † The duo, seen here eating each other’s sandwiches.

    Disney

    Mulaney and Samberg each double down on the archetypes of their two characters: Chip is intelligent and assertive as a leader, but also a determined person when it comes to pushing boundaries, while Dale prefers impulsive and crazy solutions to serious problems, albeit while swallowing. some raging uncertainties. We see each main character go from early 90s fame to their “adult” lives for the next 25 years before being forced to reunite. Their longtime castmate Monterrey Jack has crossed the wrong loan shark, and Chip and Dale decide to bury their decades-old feud for some salvage and shunting. (One of the plot threads has Mulaney’s Chip giving an opinion on Monterrey’s troubles, and if you’re familiar with Mulaney’s real-life trials and tribulations, you can chuckle the same way I do during these moments.)