Rio explores themes like friendship, trust, love, and exploration. Jesse Eisenberg is the voice of a rare bird, Blu. Through serendipity, Blu finds himself taken from Rio as a baby bird and abandoned in Minnesota. Fortunately, a kind girl named Linda finds Blu and adopts him. Fast-forward a few years and Linda (Leslie Mann) is approached by a scientist from Rio who convinces her that Blu might be one of the last birds of his kind. The scientist has an equally rare female bird of the same species. Linda reluctantly agrees to travel with Blu to Rio. Blu mets the female bird (Anne Hathaway) and sparks fail to fly. A gang of thieves steal the two rare birds and Linda and the scientist are frantic to save them. Of course, this all occurs during Carnival so plenty of music and color decorate the film. Other voices in the movie belong to George Lopez, Jane Lynch, Tracy Morgan, will i. am, and Jamie Foxx. Watching Rio would be a great way to spend a hot afternoon. GRADE: B
We did take Kevin to this one and were disappointed to spend so much time fleeing from that bad bird. I mean did the whole movie have to be about that. Colorful yes, some nice music, two interesting central human characters, but again I ask why so much tension in a kid’s movie.
You’re right, Patti. There are plenty of chase scenes in RIO. And that scary bird really is scary!
Maybe the problem is, Patti, that animated and kids movie are not always, or these days even usually, the same thing. Movie makers think they have to put in enough suspense and action for the parents in order to sell tickets and – later – videos. On the other hand, was he scared, did he have your objections? Maybe not? Even if he did, I’m a little surprised you didn’t see it coming from the trailer, or other similar films.
For myself, this one looks awful from the get-go and I’ll avoid it. Fewer and fewer animated films look interesting to me, I think Tame Your Dragon or Wall-e were the last two.
Other than being entirely predictable, Rick, RIO entertained us with its humor and the riot of color.
The color looked very good in the preview we saw but I wouldn’t pay to see it in the theater. WALL-E is in a different category, to my mind. It comes only second to my favorite animated movie of recent years – indeed, one of my favorite movies period – which was UP.
The music in RIO was festive, Jeff. If you needed to take kids ages 6-10 to the movies, RIO would be a good choice.