The furry* troublemakers go on a cruise* in the third film of the animated series.

    From the point of view of its targeted young audiences, it should be a success at the holiday box office, although it still would have been nice if they could have made an effort to give the Ross Bagdasarian Sr. characters more charm and inventiveness*.

    The plot, if you could call it that, has Alvin, Simon and Theodore (provided by the sped-up voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney) causing trouble aboard a luxury liner, much to the chagrin* of their “dad” Dave (an embarrassed-looking Jason Lee).

    Once again Alvin’s shenanigans* lead to no good—in this case landing all the “Munks and Chipettes” (the returning Amy Poehler, Anna Faris and Christina Applegate) on a remote island with an active volcano and a crazed fortune hunter (former “Saturday Night Live” cast-member Jenny Slate).

    They’re soon joined by Dave and Uncle Ian (David Cross) dressed in a pelican suit.

    While incoming director Mike Mitchell (“Shrek Forever After”) admittedly keeps the “Munks” moving at a chipper* clip, the script by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger — they also penned the “Squeakquel” — settles for well-worn pop culture references (James Bond, “Cast Away”) and puns, like “You can follow me on Critter.”

    At least there’s a glimmer of inspiration in some of the song choices.

    Aside from sampling recent hit offerings from Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and LMFAO, the film actually mines a bit of humor by having the marooned* Chipettes singing defeated, a cappella snippets of Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor” and The Go-Go’s “Vacation.” Remarkably “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle” didn’t make the cut.(SD-Agencies)