Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, and George Lopez
Rated G
Running time 96 minutes
As a baby, a blue macaw is stolen from Rio de Janeiro by rare bird smugglers, but is rescued by a young girl in America when his cage falls from the truck transporting him. The girl, Linda (Leslie Mann) grows up with her new best friend, Blu (Jesse Eisenberg). When a Brazilian ornithologist arrives on the scene, asking Linda to return Blu to Rio for mating purposes, this truly adorable story really begins.
Jewel (Anne Hathaway) is Blu’s intended mate, but she is only interested in escaping, which she manages to do with Blu in tow. The problem: Blu can’t fly. The adventure revolves around the events of reuniting Blu and Linda safely.
There are bad guys in this story of course, in the form of bird smugglers, but also some really fun sidekicks with some priceless lines. The music and musical numbers are very entertaining as well.
I watched Rio with my thirteen year-old daughter, and couldn’t believe, once the movie got going, that we hadn’t watched it sooner. In fact, since our first viewing, we’ve seen it two more times – we especially enjoy the opening scene when Blu is a baby. The animation is tremendous, and you just want to scoop up little Blu and ruffle his cute baby feathers.
Did we enjoy Rio? Yes! Do we think other families would enjoy Rio? Yes!
So I mentioned this theme of mating – it is handled so vaguely, that I don’t think parents of young children will get questions that they can’t easily answer. There is a bad-guy cockatoo that could scare some younger members of the family (five and under maybe?), but I will recommend Rio for full family viewing. It is sweet, funny (some really fine laugh-out-loud moments), fun, and entirely entertaining.
So truly, if you haven’t seen it yet, and you’re looking for a fun flick for family movie night, try Rio. You won’t be disappointed.
Reviewed by Karen Cantwell
Very nice review, Karen. "Rio" looked cute on the commercials. Glad it was this good. I'll have to check it out.
ReplyDeleteI liked it, too. As a "parront" (two parrots call me their full time human), however, I have to point out that chocolate is poison to birds--and in real life, no one should ever feed birds chocolate/hot beverages. (Rio is shown with cocoa and I think chocolate chip cookies at one point.) It also made me cry and stop it at one point, since I have (thankfully temporarily) lost a bird and completely related to the emotions of Rio's human. But then I started it off again and enjoyed it so much I watched it three times. :D
ReplyDeleteI really loved the movie. I just watched it the other night after TIVO'ing it with my pet cockatiel. It was funny watching him squack at the tv to the other birds. I grew up around birds my whole life (mostly cockatiels). Without a doubt, birds are my favorite pet.
ReplyDeleteNow, I'm a beer-drinking Greaser that works on hot rods every weekend. I consider myself manly. But, I have to admit, the opening scene where Blu falls out of the tree and where he's shivering in the box made me cry. I literally had to pause it and grab some kleenex. There's very few things that make me cry. If you want to see me bawl like a girl, show me a helpless baby bird. Not at all ashamed to admit that. For Disney to able to elicit those emotions from me with an imaginary character is pretty impressive to me.
Without a doubt my favorite pixar movie!