Rio

 

Rio is a movie that not only takes place in Brazil, but the unique aspect is that it is a family friendly version of Brazil during Carnival. Rio ends up being a fun movie that has such a fun upbeat musical score to go along with the vibrant colors of the birds that you can't help but feel happy and even have an urge to almost dance after seeing this movie. Rio gives us a fun movie that in the end deals with a privileged blue macaw that does not fly. this blue macaw though ends up going to Rio with his owner to mate with another blue macaw to help save the species, but smugglers end up stealing these two macaws. We are then sent on the journey through Rio as Blu tries to make his way back to his owner, all the while avoiding recapture.

 

Jesse Eisenberg lends his voice to the character of Blue and for some reason his voice worked perfectly. The tone of his voice was just perfect to play the blue Macaw and I even thought it was good The Social network came out prior to Rio because I picture him now more as a Macaw then the founder of Facebook. Anne Hathaway in the role of Jewel the other blue Macaw fits the role okay. Her performance with the role as the feisty character is only partially believable. Her performance was really one that any lead actress out there could have done. Jemaine Clement as our bird villain really stole the show for me. His song about himself and being a villain was perfect and was so Flight of the Conchord's like that it just worked well in the end. Clement has done the villain in two roles with such perfection that I look forward to see what he does next. The rest of the supporting cast all five admirable performances and in the end do precisely what is needed.

 

The story for Rio is nothing creative and is an okay one. While using smugglers of exotic birds is a good though, but I would have loved to have had a more creative way for the two blue macaws to be in Rio trying to escape the smugglers. While the story was simple it did not need to be complex for the story to work and in the end with it being simple I felt like everything flowed together well. The pacing for Rio was perfect as it never went too fast of too slow, but in the end it was paced in such a way that everything was able to be touched with plot points while at the same time you did not feel like it dragged.

 

The music for Rio was fun and worked so well for the feel of this movie, not only the songs in the movie, but the background music throughout the movie fit well. The music leaves you in the end with a feeling of wanting to dance and through your dancing just enjoy life. For me though one of the best musical aspects in the movie was Jemaine Clement's song as our villain bird. Anyone familiar with Clement and his participation in the show Flight of the Conchords would say the rap/song has precisely that feel to it. The humor in Rio while it was there it really was minimal and non-invasive that aside from the monkey I don't really remember much else in the humor department.

 

Rio is an animated movie for families that while it is not one that is on the level of some of the top animated movies of all time, but is still alright. Eisenberg and Clement's performances were very strong and particularly Clement made up for the okay performance brought by Anne Hathaway. The music in Rio is one that leaves you really feeling the music in the end that you have a feeling to want to dance. I am giving Rio two and three quarter buckets of popcorn out of five. This is a fun family movie that will be added to the movie collection at some point.

 

-The Movie Man