Rio - The Review

Sure, you know the ending but can you predict the events that will take you there?

Vaguely, yeah... you can. Fact is though, you’re going to be pleased in what you’ll see in Rio. Set in Brazil and Minnesota, it is a story of a rare poached bird that needs to return to his homeland in order to save his species. As the only living male blue macaw, Blu needs to mate with the Jewel, the only living female blue macaw. However, Jewel hates humans and wants to stay undomesticated, often torturing Blu with the “pet” tag. Another problem will then surface as their rare status makes them crime-worthy. In order for Blu and Jewel to save themselves, they must get away from the criminals’ before the Carnivale ends.

Voice-wise, the characters are awesome. I was never a fan of Jesse Eisenberg (shock but I haven’t seen The Social Network) but he breathe character to Blu. While I think Anne Hathaway is somewhat overexposed at the moment, you can’t say nothing at how she voiced Jewel. Jamie Foxx, Rodrigo Santoro, Leslie Mann, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jemaine Clement, Bernardo de Paula, Robin Thicke, Carlos Ponce, and will.i.am also had commendable performances. Jake T. Austin was somewhat alright but Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch had almost cameo roles. I never knew Neil Patrick Harris was in the movie until I browsed Wikipedia.  

The soundtrack of the film is great. Sure, it has a lot of samba feel in it but non-samba lovers could like what they’ll hear. My GF thought Taio Cruz is awesome and maybe I can give his music a shot. The Jamie Foxx song was awesome. I loved will.i.am’s speaking voice (where he was like singing) more than when he actually sung but that doesn’t mean that his singing is crap. It is not. I just loved hearing him bust the rhymes as the cool cardinal.

If I’m going to diss the movie, I’m going to rant about the story. Sure, it didn’t need to be deep but I wished it had a lot more things to offer as well. It felt like there is room for improvement in the movie. The kid was also a downer because he is one of those characters that you can live without in the story. The bodyguard that had the shiny gold brief could have been a better role to expand in place of the kid.

However you can’t discount that this is a wonderful movie. In some ways, it was brave because it introduced three not-so-kid friendly scenarios. Uno: the Carnivale is a celebration filled with almost naked Brazilian women. Numero dos: poaching is a heinous crime abundant in Brazil. And finally, it didn’t pull back in exposing the life in Brazil aside from the beaches and the forests. The huge chunk of poverty that can be seen when Blu and Jewel escaped via a roof is an indication why there are people resorting to crime to live lavishly.

Maybe this should wake up the Brazilian government in making an effort in cleaning up their image.

Nonetheless, this movie is a must watch... especially in 3D.

Game over.