ILLUSIONS, MICHAEL

Jack Black continues to prove that he’s much better off heard and not seen in the stupidly charming Kung Fu Panda 2. Funny, warm, beautiful to look at and packed to the brim with high-speed tail kicking, it just goes to show that sloppy seconds really aren’t Dreamworks’ style.

First they released Alvin and the Chipmunks, a horrifically high-pitched cacophony of holiday season ‘fun’. With kids flocking to the cinemas in droves, the inevitable follow-up, painfully labelled ‘The Squeakquel’ materialised in late 2009. Following the DVD marketing mantra of “everyone loves a film series packaged in the same box with loads of extras” to the letter, the unavoidable ‘Double Trouble’ has surfaced, breaking the record for “the biggest piece of crap to ever be released in a two-disc box set”.

It’s sad when your realise something you used to find endless entertainment in as a child is no longer appealing to you. Much like discovering we would rather play drinking games than jump rope, it seems the time has come where we may have outgrown the Chipmunks. Either that or this modern-day retelling of the rodents’ rise to fame in the music industry was, well, crap.

Development of an Arrested Development movie is no longer… arrested! Michael Cera – presumably bored and/or racked with shame from appearing in several cackhanded comedies over the last year – has revealed to stateside magazine US Weekly that he’s been on board to appear in the planned movie.

You don’t need us to tell you this was never going to be a good film, but in the age of Up and Where the Wild Things Are, there’s always a chance kids’ movies might surprise you. No surprises here unfortunately – this sequel to the equally inane Alvin and the Chipmunks sees our high-pitched protagonists dealing with high school and a rival rodent-based pop group with typical stupidity and slapstick humour. The plot is formulaic, there’s no acting to speak of and there’s enough cutesyness to test even the strongest stomach.