Rio is charming and colourful. It also looks like the newest marketing tool of the Ministry of Tourism, Brazil and like most movies featuring slums, it made the imposing hillside shanty towns (flavelas) look exotic and romantic. I don’t have to mention to you that all postcard Rio landmarks have ample screen time: Christ the Redeemer Statue, Sugar Loaf Mountain, the Carnaval Sambadrome and I wasn’t sure if it was Ipanema or Copacabana beach but it’s in there.
The story of Rio centres on Blu a domesticated pet ‘blue macaw’ living in frigid Minnesota with Linda, a nerdy book store owner. They anxiously head to Brazil after a biologist from Rio, Tulio convinces Linda to bring her pet to his facility to mate with the supposedly last female of his species. An eager Blu meets Jewel in a pimped up enclosure, but love was clearly not in the air as the only thing on her mind is escape. Real adventure begins once wildlife smugglers break into facility to kidnap world’s last two blue macaws hoping to fetch a high price in the black market. Here we’re introduced to the wonderfully villainous duo of the lead smuggler Marcel and his profoundly evil cockatoo, Nigel. With the help of many supporting avian characters, Blu and Jewel find themselves in a cat and mouse game with the smugglers. Amid brewing romance, Blu has to overcome the fact that he never learnt to fly as they rise above obstacles to reunite with their human companions.
The premise of this movie is apparently based upon the circumstances facing the Spix's Macaws of Brazil. The all bright cerulean coloured macaws (lighter blue head and underparts just like in the movie) are extinct in the wild where only a handful remains in zoos. Breeding programs are being carried out to eventually reintroduce them to the rainforests of Brazil.
In Rio when Blu spoke for the first time, I thought “Who hired Mark Zuckerberg?” (lol) Jesse Eisenberg from the Facebook movie lent his immediately recognisable voice to a character too timid, geeky and set in his ways to experience change. The regal Anne Hathaway depicted Jewel as headstrong, freedom loving and unwilling to be match made. Plus she can sing!
Being the musical that it is, the movie features the music of Sergio Mendes, the great Brazilian composer, and the more contemporary Will.I.Am and Taio Cruz. And accompanying that electrifying soundtrack (worth getting by the way) are the most colourful animated dance scenes I’ve seen recently.
Rio is essentially two very similar falling-in-love stories, like two trains on parallel tracks heading the same way. One involves the birds, and the other, the nerds.
This animation may not have the emotional or philosophical depth like other animations in the past few years (Toy Story 3 is my new favourite) but it does reveal to kids about the criminality of wildlife smuggling for the pet industry. The next time you visit that pet store, ask yourselves, is that bird endangered, where did it come from, will I damage the native ecosystem by buying that illicit animal? The producers missed the boat on this one where they didn’t clearly link how children’s choices affect the illegal wildlife trade. Cut off the demand, cut off the smugglers.
Overall, not a must-see movie but a gorgeous animation coupled with tailored-for-Brazil soundtrack. Definitely not a waste of money though.
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