When you take Samba, Brazil, and Carnival all together, what do you get? A kids film? I thought I would never put all of the three words together and say that there is the basis of a children’s film. However, the movie Rio takes the tradition of Carnival and brings the life an adventure through the life of birds.
From the creator of Ice Age, Rio is a movie about a bird named Blu voiced by Jesse Eisenberg (Zombie land, Social Network) who was stolen from the jungles of Brazil as a new born baby and was rescued by a girl named Linda voiced by Leslie Mann (Funny People, 17 Again) in which they grow up together as a Minnesota.
Linda was approached by Tulio played by Rodrigo Santoro (300, Che) who is a bird researcher in Brazil. He wants Blu to go mate with Jewel voiced over Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada, Alice in Wonderland) since Blu and Jewel are the last of their species. They fly to Brazil to join Jewel and Blu together. When they are placed together, things don’t go as planned through intimacy and then they are ultimately stolen and being sold to the highest bidder. An evil bird named Nigel voiced by Jermaine Clement (Despicable Me, Dinner for Schmucks) plays the predator bird that helps the robbers maintain the birds in their custody till sold.
With the help from Rafael voiced by George Lopez, helps Blue and Jewel in trying to escape and find Linda, but with the one main problem Blu never learned to fly. This film is meant for kids, and only is for kids. However, with to much attempt to add adult humor into it.
I am sorry but the plot of this film really has no meaning and Rio missed the punch in touching on an important topic of illegal exporting which I felt they played it only to be a problem because it was a problem for the main characters.
One of the biggest problems with this film was the voice over’s. It didn’t work for most of the birds. When you get these stars that are doing voiceovers now, it really doesn’t do justice for the movie. Seeing Jesse Eisenburg voice over of a talking bird doesn’t match as all. Jamie Foxx’ as a tweedy looking bird didn’t work very well either. What happened to the industry of voice over professionals? It is like they are a dying bread or movies just want to attract more viewers just by name recognition. Professional voice over’s would’ve done a much better job.
Rio really tried to mix adult humor into with kid humor. However the adult humor was more inappropriate and definitely went over the heads of the kids. After living in Central America, I am aware of the theft of items and international issues that happen due to the lack of security enforcement, but I really didn’t like it being associated in a children’s film.
There was really no feeling for any of the characters except for Linda, Blu’s owner. What also kept the movie going was the evil bird Nigel. His character has spice, intensity, and kept the chase worthwhile. The movie was over hyped and put together poorly. It made the predicable, predicable… The fact that dancing and partying was the message to resolve all your problems only made it worse, since it had potential to be better.
My 5 year old did enjoy the film and laughed and danced in the movie. However it reminded me of seeing some films that when I was a kid I didn’t understand or knew the content in the film, but then seeing it as a parent, makes me think twice of what I was allowing my daughter to see it.
I really don’t recommend this film. In fact, it didn’t flow well, nor did it make much sense in the fact that this love tale between two birds didn’t even seem probable in the way this film portrays it. I would skip it.
Grade: C-
If you liked this film, I recommend:
The Rescuers (1977)
Cars (2006)
Happy Feet (2006)