Twentieth Century Fox Animation, Blue Sky Studios,
Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Jesse Eisenberg, Rodrigo Santoro, Jemaine Clement, Jake T. Austin, Jamie Foxx, Kristin Chenoweth, John Leguizamo, Amandla Stenberg, Andy Garcia, Rita Moreno, Bruno Mars, Tracy Morgan, George Lopez
You may remember from the first film, Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) thought they were the last Blue Hyacinth Macaws left, so when they find out there may be others deep in the jungle along with their 3 children, they set off to find others of their species. The find their family, including Jewel’s father, and her ex-boyfriend, Nigel (Jemaine Clementa) who goes to head to head against Blu all the way. The Blu family are happy to find others of their kind, but there is trouble in the Jungle and Blu finds himself in the middle of it. It seems like there are too many problems to go around.
This sequel to the original Rio, Rio 2 was probably not as good as the first, but it was nice in many ways. This was more about the birds and much less about the humans which I found refreshing, and it is beautifully drawn. The scenery and colors are truly splendid, and the sound track was typically nice and tropical sounding. There’s an awful lot of Bruno Mars, so that’s a plus or a minus, depending on how you feel about that, but I couldn’t find fault with the music. The story is a little weaker. The battle between sides of the jungle is a lot like many of the old Our Gang shorts, and is nothing new, and we get preached at about the environment and taking care of the Earth which I find annoying, but I was able to enjoy the story and get past that. All in all, it was really well put together, and though they could have used a bit more work on the script, the voices, not only the ones who returned, but all the new characters, added a lot to the story. This is a who’s who of animation voice over characters. I really enjoyed watching this, and I think the folks at Blue Sky Animation did a good job for a sequel.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
