Rio 2 - Dschungelfieber

As a sequel to the 2011 original, Rio 2 continues in the tradition of its older sibling with screwball humor and madcap mischief. While maintaining a pedigree for celebrating song and dance through a kaleidoscopic burst of colors, Rio 2 is gorgeously rendered but offset by a clichéd script that is also laced with classroom lecture.

This sequel begins in Rio de Janeiro where our feathered friends Blu and Jewel (Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway) discover that they are not the last of their species after all. Along with their three kids, they leave Rio and fly to the Amazonian rain forest where an entire flock of blue macaws was reportedly spotted. As it turns out, the flock exists and is headed by Jewel's long lost father Eduardo (Andy Garcia) and guarded by her old flame Roberto (Bruno Mars). Now reduced to a stuttering parrot, Blu must man-up to his overzealous father-in-law (think Robert De Niro in Meet the Parents) while thwarting Roberto's attempts (think Owen Wilson in Meet the Parents) at charming Jewel. Meanwhile, Blu's nemesis Nigel (Jemaine Clement) has resurfaced and is all out for revenge.

Come school days and kids will have plenty of reason to mimic their favorite characters. From human characters voiced by Rodrigo Santoro and Leslie Mann, to Blu's crooning friends Nico (Jamie Foxx), Pedro (Will.i.am), everyone is back for a second round of slapstick shenanigans. And joining the old cast are some feisty new voice talents including Kristin Chenoweth as Gabi, a poisonous dart-frog so obsessed with Nigel, you could even think of her as his psycho girlfriend. Haunted by a disastrous turn of events in the first movie, Nigel himself is loonier than before with a thespian swagger that pokes fun at none other than the Bard of Avon. Speaking of which, lookout for a hilarious scene aimed at adults where Nigel and Gabi find themselves dramatizing one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. While many such segments are genuinely funny, the story strays at times with subplots from deforestation to male bonding, before stepping into a puddle of teary-eyed melodrama. Kids laughed and adults clapped, but there were periods of silence too, and I am not referring to those brief scenes where death was implied.

Emerging as a game changer in animated films, Blue Sky Studios, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, struck gold with its very first feature production – Ice Age (2002). It's been tunneling through a gold mine ever since. While Rio 2 might seem like a cash cow for some viewers, it is still a delightful animation with foot-tapping music to get your groove on. And like a Gloria Gaynor hit song performed by Clement's Nigel, there is every reason to believe this sequel will survive.

Like "Avatar", only instead of blue humanoids, we have blue parrots. It may be visually fascinating in 3D, but at home, on the computer, it did not leave a special impression. If you liked the first one, you will like this one too. If not, skip it.

6/10

Getting back into thinking about how narratives get put together, I am reminded of how many radically different strategies there are in approaching a film.

If you talk to the (old) Pixar guys, what you'll hear is a focus on story, a cinematic notion of story, above all else. The story comes first; characters emerge whether they are promising franchise characters or not. It is all about making the flow engaging and creating a lasting experience.

As I go through my list of valued filmmakers, I can pull out a number of different approaches: Ruiz looks for the dissonance between narrative layers and removes the middle. Cronenberg finds a disturbing edge, creates a situation, then builds things to present it. Spielberg makes comics that are refined in story boards then mechanically reproduced in film. I'll have to think about the varieties.

Then we have this guy, Saldanha, who has sold a lot of tickets to happy viewers.

The strategy here seems to be to create characters above all else. Make characters. Find some kind of simple enclosing story, it doesn't matter what. Have all the characters create their own local, small static narrative. Then just embellish and display those.

I suppose this approach has been refined over on the half hour TeeVee comedy side where story is just an excuse to have character spaces interact. I am always surprised when I see this work, and it plainly does here, though none of the characters are compelling in the ordinary way.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. In other films, I see stories getting ever more compelling in surprising ways and exhibiting self-awareness with increasing sophistication.

These are fun movies, not art films I'm talking about. So it makes sense to have films like Ice Age and Rio for minds that don't work that way, that have shorter narrative attention spans and undeveloped narrative sense.

While this is designed for international audiences, and made by a Brazilian and set in Brazil. But most of the voices and nearly all the songs are hip hop urban style that is uniquely American.

While it wasn't the best movie or even the best animation I have seen this year, this movie is definitely entertaining.

The movie begins with Blu, Jewel and their three kids having fun in their home in Rio, while Blu's former owner, Linda, and her husband, Tulio, are in the amazon. While in the Amazon, they discover a flock of blue macaws. Seeing this on the news, Jewel is desperate to visit and the story begins as Blu, his family and his friends from the last movie accompany him to the Amazon.

The story is decent. There are quite a few songs and plenty of comedic moments as well. While Blu is trying to fit in the tribe, there are a couple of dangerous foes around, Nigel and an illegal tree logger (one of which had plenty of moments which kind of reminded me of Avatar). There are plenty of great moments in the amazon when Blu is trying to fit in, which leads to one of my favourite moments, which was when they revealed the Pit of Doom. Also, it was fun to see Nigel (the white cockatoo) back, along with some new characters. The voice-work and music were quite good as well.

This movie is entertaining, the story and ending are nice as well. Although I have rated it the same as Rio, I think this was a little better. Found it to be quite funny and more action packed as well. A fun family movie.

Rio I was good enough to be entertaining and loved. It was fun. However, there wasn't much of a necessity to a sequel unless it matches its level and authencity. They are already happy, one, satisfied. There isn't a huge plot to look for. There isn't much space for comedy or even the twists and turns. It was so unoriginal I couldn't even connect them back to the ones they already were. The visuals make us awestruck and are very creative. However, only visuals can't make a movie complete. I didnt enjoy it. Heisenberg was good when his csreer stafted, hasn't been as effective in theast few years. However, He's still young and already a big name.