Review of Rio (2011) by Ethan K — 01 Aug 2012

Rio is another one of those middling Animated movie affairs. Falling to boring cliches that seem to plague animated movies, but also following the formula well enough for the characters to be fun, and likable... At least for the animal characters.

To just get it out of the way, the number one thing that bothered me, a thing that just annoyed me to ridicules levels, and the main reason that the movie doesn't get a perfect score... Is because of the human characters. Mostly the two main human characters. Literally, whenever they were in the scene, the movie dropped in quality. Not only are they completely uninteresting, and stupid, but because of the complete GARBAGE dialog, it got me to the point where i'm thinking "Is this supposed to be funny? Am I supposed to laugh now?" And this isn't the only time that an animated movie has had horrible human characters, Bee Movie comes to mind real quick... But whatever. I can see most not really thinking much about it much, but it really just frustrated me probably way too much.

But on the bright side (Because yes, the movie is good overall) Most of the humor is funny, and a bit sly. But mostly entertaining. The animation is great, not mind blowing, but wow! Do they make Rio look amazing. I'm not saying the real place isn't beautiful, but it's just the strong point of the animation.

It's actually a very enjoyable movie! When the screen is strictly taken up by the animals. It's good! I certainly liked it! Even though it felt a bit "Humm dee dummm" in it's story and execution/quality, it's a great movie... But whenever the movie goes back to "those who shalt not be named" the movie turns into a 1/5 sadly. And even worse! It happens a kind of often. The whole thing with her trying to find her bird again is fine, but because these characters are so bad, it's makes the whole thing feel pointless.

This is something not very well know probably, but Pixar cancelled a movie a year ago entitled "Newt". They cancelled it because of the fact that Rio and Newt would come out the same year, and follow the same general plot. "Two animals are stuck together to continue the survival of their species" kind of thing i'm assuming... I don't know about you! But I would have much rather liked to see the Pixar version.

Prediction: 8.5/10.

Score: 6.9/10.