Unreal Movie Review: Rio

3.5 out of 5 stars

You know, it may be inbred bias at this point, but I’m inherently skeptical of any CGI film that isn’t from Pixar these days.

It has to do with a long running track record of Pixar releasing absolute gold year after year, and every other CGI kids movie I see is the talking animal celebrity parade of Dreamworks, whose films I mostly despise (don’t get me started on Kung Fu Panda).

But I forget that there’s a third party in the mix in the form of Sony Pictures Animation, you’ll know them best for the inexplicably hugely profitable Ice Age series, and possibly Robots or Horton Hears a Who if your child dragged you to those.

I wasn’t expecting much from Rio, as the only promotion I heard about it was an iPhone game that was an eye-rolling crossover with Angry Birds. But sure, why not, let’s go see some silly flying fowl.

The gift of managed expectations is that you’ll often enjoy yourselves more than you’d think. Rio was an amusing tale for me, and for my girlfriend who actually owns an exotic bird? It’s quite possibly the greatest movie ever made.

Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is a baby blue Macaw that is birdnapped from his home in Rio during a very festive bird song and dance routine before he even learns to fly. He’s hauled by smugglers to the US, where he falls off a truck and winds up in the care of Linda (Leslie Mann) and the two become best buds. Due to a Macaw’s long lifespan, the duo grow up together over the next few decades.

But one day their rather lonely routine is interrupted by traveling ornithologist Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) who informs Linda that he’s searched far and wide for Blu, as he’s the last living male Blu Macaw and he needs to get busy with a female they’ve captured or else his species will become extinct.

One all expense paid trip later, and Blu is back in Rio, and finds himself forced to attempt to seduce Jewel (Anne Hathaway), but she’s far less concerned by his awkward advances and more focused on escaping captivity.

Unfortunately, during the first night there, new smugglers (is there really that much money in illegal colorful birds?) break in, steal the pair and plan to sell them. They’re bound together by a chain and caged, and though they quickly escape, they’re constantly pursued by the smugglers and their evil bird Nigel (Jemaine Clement). They must get rid of the chain that binds them, Blu must find his way back to a hysterical Linda, and oh yeah, he should probably learn how to fly along the way.

The whole “hero and heroine” chained together gag has been done and done and done, so it’s not terribly fresh here. It does add a different dynamic to the film though, because it forces the film about birds to have its two main characters walk everywhere. This satisfies certain plot points, but can often make for a rather dull storyline.

But despite the lack of flight, Rio assembles a colorful cast of characters to make sure your kids don’t fall asleep. There are song and dance numbers (sometimes oddly out of place) and harrowing action scenes involving birds fighting thieving monkeys.

It’s a fun feature, but lacks the deeper lessons and emotions present in some of the better kids movies out there these days. What’s the take away here? Being handicapped is lame? Rio is better than Minnesota? Birds don’t like cages? Sure, whatever.

I find it rather humorous that the central plot of this kids movie is that two birds are going to be forced to have sex to save their race, but I guess that’s the kind of things that goes over most children’s heads. Rio isn’t the deepest kids movie around, but I guess we’re just spoiled by extremely high quality in the genre as of late.

3.5 out of 5 stars

 

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8 Comments

  1. i’m probably in the minority or even flying solo here, but I honestly without any hipster anti-establishment leanings believe “how to train your dragon” is a superior film to each of the last three pixar offerings: toy story 3, up, and wall-e. *flamesuit on*

  2. I agree with Leon that How to train your dragon was one hell of a movie (still not superior to Toy story 3 ….).

    Hence, i believe that yes, indeed there’s quality stuff in CGI pictures beyound pixar, have you folks seen Biorn Already? It’s a dandy good short CGI film, and a graduation project!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV5w262XvCU

    I quite agree with Paul’s review, but as a Rio citizen, i was quite amused by the “fidelity with reality” on the picture. Most times when foreign pictures or games feature Brazil, 90% of what you see is just…well, quite irritating for locals here. (See Modern warfare 2 as an example, thoose bandits on the Rio stage resemble -nothing at all- the low-level criminal scumbag you would find in a millitia-ruled Favela [Which, by the way, are nearly extinct])

    And about rare bird smuggling, yeah, that’s nasty profitable and several operations against Illegal animal commerce occur every year.

    Btw, i read this site daily for more than a year now and that’s the first time i ever comment, i think lol

  3. How come all your movie reviews, whether you ultimately think they’re watchable or unwatchable, get 3.5 out of 5 stars? The star system loses its efficacy when your score never changes.

  4. Had to stop reading after you seem to hint towards not liking Kung Fu Panda one bit. And not mentioning How to Train Your Dragon? Blah. Pixar isn’t all godly out there.

  5. Hey Paul, I just noticed that ~70% of your review is the summary of the movie.
    Maybe next time you can shorten the summary into 1 paragraph (~20%), then the rest is your explanation why you gave it 3 or 4 stars.

  6. While most non-Pixar CGI movies are pretty bad, there are a few gems. How To Train Your Dragon, as mentioned already, is as good as any Pixar movie. The original Shrek, tarnished by never-ending sequels, was spectacular. Tangled has given me hope that Disney is finally serious about making great movies again without relying entirely on Pixar to do it for them.

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