Alvin, Simon and Theodore … did you catch yourself humming the tune? … are minding their own business preparing for the winter when they find themselves suddenly uprooted and moving to the city. Through happenstance they end up with Dave and the fun begins. (By the way, Jason Lee is Dave, he of the “My Name is Earl” fame. I knew I recognized him, but I didn’t realize just how annoying he is.)

The three chipmunks are the same curious “kids” they have always been in the cartoons, always finding ways to turn neat into messy, and with a certain munkish charm. They fall into a nice routine with Dave, singing and playing, but there has to be a villain, right? “Uncle Ian” (of Jett Records) is predictably self-serving and even more so when he learns the chipmunks can sing. He proceeds to do all he can to make as much money as possible on their munky grooves.

The chipmunk story grows weary in parts (and is moderately predictable) and the director tries to cover the lulls with cute chipmunk antics. In some cases … it works. In others … not so much. The movie was entertaining overall but one which I should have waited for the DVD release. It was, however, a great father-son day, so because of that time spent together, I’ll give it 3 stars (instead of 2).

In the previous 3 Die Hard movies all of them had the same basic plotline; Foreign invaders wreak havoc in the name of what is believed to be politics but ultimately it winds up being about money… Episode 4 is no different.

This time the main baddie is Thomas Gabriel (Olyphant), a former tech head that tried to save America by showing the joint chiefs we were vulnerable to a major techno attack that could bring the country to it’s knees, but of course we don’t listen and he finds another way to prove he was right… Run the exact scenario he told the government the terrorists would use and send us back to the stone-age. But wait before he can do this he has to hire a whole peck of geeks to design little pieces of code that he can use in different phases to make his prophecy a reality, and just like the main rule of assassination (eliminate the assassin when the job is done), Gabriel puts out contracts on his geek squad when they finish so they can’t un-do his master plan, if they decide to go to the cops. All in all a good plan, too bad John McLane never lets the bad guys have their cake and eat it too.

One particular target of Gabe’s is Matt Farrell (Long), a New Jersey based hacker that designs decryption algorithms and collects action figures. After a few high profile hackers start getting bumped off around the country the FBI sends out a request to bring Farrell in and have him tell them what’s going on. Enter John McLane the man who always gets the lucky task of saving the day… Again… and John always gets the job done.

Bruce Willis is still cooler than the other side of the pillow as Sr. Detective John McLane so there was no way this movie could suck, and gratefully it didn’t. Supporting players, Olyphant and Long are quite good and so is the smoking hot Ninja babe Maggie Q. Kevin Smith shows up in a pretty funny role as Hacker Elite-Master Warlock… AKA Freddy. Throw in Winstead as the saucy daughter along with a half squirrell psycho for John to fight and you have a very cool action movie. Oh, I forgot the fact a jet chases him so toss that in too.

Yippy Ki Yay Mother F’ers John McLane is back and you should go check him out! Don’t go in expecting realism, go in expecting to be entertained – You’ll get your wish.

Justin Long plays Ferris…er.. Bartleby, a high school senior who’s excellent at talking his way out of trouble but never bothered to expend that same energy to get himself decent grades. As a result, every college he’s applied to has rejected him, even State. Apparently he’s never heard of community college and when his parents flip out upon discovery of his lack of acceptance he decides his best course of action is to create his own college. When he gets his acceptance letter his parents are quite proud and his dad just hands him a check for 10 grand to pay for tuition. Yeah, that would happen.

Bartleby’s plan was to lay low while working on a better plan but unfortunately his dad wants to drop him off for the first day of school. Time to spend some money!Bartleby and a few friends lease an old mental hospital and make it look like the school and get some “extras” to mill around like students. They actually pull this off (uh-huh) and things are looking good until a few hundred additional students show up. Seems the fake website that was put up to fool the parents managed to attract many underachievers with stupid parents willing to fork over 10K checks at the drop of a hat.

Anyway, Bartleby puts together a class schedule of sorts and the place starts to run like a typical art college. This is until the evil Ivy league school wannabe up the road decides they need the land for their own sinister uses. Yep, I left a lot out up to this point, but does it really matter?

Accepted is better than I expected, but it isn’t going to win any awards. The acting is as good as you’ll find in this type of movie and I really don’t have any complaints about it other than it being too predictable. I’m only giving it 3 stars, but it’s a strong 3 stars.

Movies For Guys’ Original Review of the Theatrical Release

Jeepers Creepers is a good old fashioned booger movie with cheap thrills, blood, a silly premise, humor, a really bad guy and some gore. The only thing it’s missing is some pointless nudity, which might have gotten it an extra star.

We start off with a brother and sister riding home from college to visit mom. There’s a bit of time spent here to let us get to know the characters, but I couldn’t help thinking to myself “let talk, more slashing!” However, there is some funny dialogue here if you pay attention, so the time isn’t a complete waste.

Before long they are victims of a nasty bit of road rage, which brings up the obligatory telling of a school legend about a couple who were killed on this very road. Ohh… scary!

OK, I’m being too harsh. The movie really does do a good job of building tension for the first 45 minutes or so, then things start to get a little.. strange. Suffice it to say that the movie doesn’t do a great job of explaining the bad guy and how he ends up “feeding” every “26th spring”. I suppose it doesn’t really matter though as long as it offers some good moments of fright, and judging from the girls in the audience it did a pretty good job in this regard.

I’m gonna wrap this up before I say more than I should. While it’s not too hard to see where this movie is going, the final conclusions might catch you off guard. If you like mindless horror flicks, you’re gonna like this movie. Otherwise, just wait for the rental and hope for some deleted scenes!