In Rio 2, rare Spix's macaws named Blu
(Eisenberg, Now You See Me)
and Jewel (Hathaway, Les
Miserables) are together
in a loving relationship, tending to their three precocious baby
birds. Their life takes an unexpected turn when it is discovered that
a whole family of blue macaws has been discovered in the Amazonian
rain forest, making them not the last of their species as had been
originally thought, so they fly out to meet their kind. Unfortunately for them, this part of the forest is
slated for being chopped down in a logging operation, and the birds'
human friends, newlywed couple Linda (Mann,
The Bling Ring) and Tulio
(Santoro, 300: Rise of an Empire), are out to make sure
the endangered species are protected.
Despite the return of all
of the voice actors and director, the charm of the original
Rio
is largely absent for this superfluous sequel. The animation is still
stunning, the musical interludes are fun and catchy, and there are
lots of cute character touches here and there that might make for some
funny comic relief moments. Alas, what might make for funny
asides are the film's main thrust, as the screewnwriters begrudgingly have a plot
that merely services the protagonists
keeping the empty momentum going by continuously meeting new characters and creatures to interact with.
Rio
2 won't go down as the kind of superior animated sequels that
Toy Story 2 and Shrek 2 manage to be. It's more along
the lines of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, save for
admittedly catchy music. As with other animated sequels of its ilk,
its need to retain nearly every character from the first film, as well
as introduce a slew of others, only makes for an increase in story
contrivance in order to shoehorn them all in, as well as increase the
amount of distraction from the main plot in order to ensure that each
character beat is explored.
New characters include a new 'Romeo'
named Roberto, voiced by Bruno Mars (Honeymoon in Vegas), who
gets to croon in one song, a plethora of parrots, and a loggers who are seeking
an end to the rain forest for profit. The worst of them is the
stereotypical disapproving father, the human-hating Eduardo (Garcia,
At Middleton), aka 'Pop
Pop' (he annoyingly repeats his nickname over and over during any
songs for no apparent reason), who castrates Blu at every turn much in
the same manner as De Niro in Meet the Parents. Then
there's an aardvark and a toxic tree frog named Gabi (voiced by Kristin Chenoweth,
Running with Scissors), who is infatuated with the maladjusted, now-flightless
cockatoo, Nigel, that are cute for kids but serve little use to the
overall story.
None of the new characters (and there are way too many introduced) add
much to the fun, while the ones we've already come to know seem like
annoying versions of their former selves, particularly Blu, who comes
off as nebbish and cloying, and now sports a fanny pack for reasons
that only exist for Pop Pop to look disapprovingly toward. Meanwhile,
Jewel is relegated to either being annoyed with Blu for one reason or
another, or just saying, "Awwwwww!", whenever he manages to do
something thoughtful. Tulio, a caring, brilliant scientist in
the first film, now is just a clumsy nerd, while Linda barely has a
personality at all except as necessitated in the plot.
The ending of the film tries to supplant story with a half-hearted eco
message that we shouldn't destroy the habitats of all of these
protected animals for greed, but it feels like an afterthought, adding
little more than noise and a lot of cartoonish violence that feels out
of place in a modern-day G-rated feature. Director Saldanha (Ice
Age) doesn't
bother to keep it all together, feeling like most people enjoyed the
bells and whistles of the first film, and thus he's determined to not
let an interesting story stand in the way of cute character moments
and saccharine choreographed song-and-dance numbers.
Qwipster's rating:
©2014 Vince Leo
