RIO (2011)

RIO (2011)

6/10

 
Starring

Jesse Eisenberg
Anne Hathaway
George Lopez


Directed by Carlos Saldanha

Rio is a 3D computer-animated movie for the family this Easter period. It is crammed with suspense and thrills for the kids. I didn’t expect much from the movie, but I was entertained. Imagine a domesticated parrot, who thought the reason he couldn’t fly was because he probably was an ostrich. Rio is funny, with catch phrases that can make you laugh all through the movie. 

The characters are well developed and the locations are beautifully rendered. The plot is reminiscent of Madagascar (by Dreamworks), but the voice casting to me needed some work.

That means you Jesse. I mean, Jesse? Seriously? When Blu was making a move on Jewel all he had to say was ‘are you on Facebook?’

Rio, is about a domesticated macaw (translated blue parrot) Blu voiced by Jesse Eisenberg, who is stolen from his home in Brazil and smuggled into the States.

He finds his way into the hands of a little girl named Linda and they spend 15 inseparable years together. Linda discovers with some help that the macaw (blue parrot) is almost extinct so she arranges for Blu to be flown to Brazil to mate with a free spirited blue macaw, named Jewel (voiced by Anne Hathaway).

Later on, the rare birds get stolen by smugglers and we are faced with an adventure of how they escape and find their way back, to their owners.

RIO is Blue Sky Studios's sixth feature film, although they are behind PIXAR/Disney and Dreamworks studios when it comes to making the big bucks in the box office, and planting memorable characters in your memory. Blue Sky has found a way to keep their head above water.

They are the makers of Ice Age, Horton Hears a who and Robots. Although the last two movies listed here didn’t make as huge a wave as the Ice Age series or their new feature RIO, we can see that Blue Sky is more interested in making movies that are suitable for all the family to watch.

Rio has something grand to look out for and it is the carnival. How the director made the carnival pivotal to the love between Blu and Jewel is just moving. A down side to the movie is that not only is it predictable (yet funny), the movie is not memorable and you’ll probably forget all that happened 5 minutes after watching. Kudos to the score, you don’t get to feel like the music in the movie is detached from it, like it was in HOP. It’s a movie for the Kids and adults with enough free time on their hand.