‘Rio’ fun for all the family
Rio
(Cert U, 92 mins, Animation/Family/Comedy/Romance)
Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) is a domesticated blue macaw who lives in relative luxury in the sleepy community of Moose Lake, Minnesota, with owner and best friend Linda (Leslie Mann).
Brazilian conservationist Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) persuades Linda to bring Blu to Rio de Janeiro, so the rare bird can mate with the only known female blue macaw, Jewel (Anne Hathaway).
No sooner has Blu met Jewel than the birds are kidnapped by greedy animal smugglers led by the nefarious Marcel (Carlos Ponce) and his conniving cockatoo, Nigel (Jemaine Clement).
However, since Blu is unable to fly, the macaws have limited escape options and as Nigel and the smugglers give chase, Blu and Jewel must rely on the help of a Toucan called Rafael (George Lopez) and wise-cracking city birds Pedro (Will.i.am) and Nico (Jamie Foxx) to find their way back to Linda and Tulio.
Rio is a joyous computer-animated romantic comedy set to intoxicating Brazilian rhythms.
Carlos Saldanha’s film flutters a familiar and predictable path, but does so in style, opening with a glorious aerial sequence through the rainforests.
Slapstick comedy comes from a gang of larcenous monkeys and a bulldog suffering from excessive saliva.
Drool is cool.
Eisenberg has his characters’ neuroses down pat, Hathaway is gleeful as the feisty heroine while Clement has a ball as the feathered fiend, whose tongue-in-cheek dialogue is littered with puns and delightful alliterations.
One version of the Blu-ray includes the 3D version of the film, which dazzles the retinas during a hair-raising motorcycle ride through the backstreets of Rio and the climactic rescue during carnival.
Rating: 3/5.
