Missed Movies: Rio

WARNING

THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SPOILERS THEN DON'T READ THE BITS WRITTEN IN RED.

OTHER THAN THIS BIT, OBVIOUSLY.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Well, I'm sorry, but I didn't see the point in reviewing the latest Harry Potter and I hate that you feel you have the right to expect any such thing of me. It's my review page and I can review whatever film I damn well please. If you want me to review Harry Potter then give me the money for the ticket and I'll simply go and spend it on something else entirely. Maybe after that you would accept that I am in charge of this relationship and thusly I call the shots. Now sit back and listen to me wax prophetic about something you wont care about, Rio.

Any of my regular readers (you both know who you are) will be aware of my love for almost anything Pixar and usual distain for anything other than. To date I've enjoyed exactly one non pixar CG animation and that was the first Shrek. Everything else released that hasn't run through Pixar's God like phalanges I've deemed as less than worth of my upmost attention. Usually these forgettable embellishments fail to make me laugh, engage me in story nor turn me away wishing to promote what I'd seen to my friends, family or loved ones. So it should come as no surprise that after taking in Rio, my reaction was a fair distance short of enthused.

Rio is the story of a blue macaw that goes by the amazingly imaginative name of Blu. Blu is that last male of his species and as a result is flown off to Rio de Janeiro in order to mate with the only surviving female. Tagging along for the ride are the two birds respective owners and a simultaneous love story evolves. It isn't long however before the birds get kidnapped and have to find their way back to their owners. As plots go its simple and straight forward. It fails to impresses or surprise at any point but it does service the film as well as can be expected, though I expect that even the current generation of kiddies will find it a little boresom. It's about time that Hollywood started waking up to the fact that our youth isn't as innocent as we'd like them to be. Since the invention of the internet the average primary school age student knows what sex is, is aware of what drugs are and has seen enough horror movies to find the gore they contain somewhat humorous. What this means is that 'family films' can now allow themselves to delve slightly deeper into darker material. I'm not saying that Dreamworks needs to remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or anything, but go ahead and take a few more risks. I hate to sound like a stuck record but Toy Story did it and that turned out just fine.

Other let downs within Rio can be found in numerous other places. The first thing that jumped out at me as off was the soundtrack. I have nothing against musicals, in fact I'm a not so closeted fan, but the days of animation containing musical set-pieces has passed, its out of date now. Rio spends a decent amount of time trying to establish its tone, then throws in a musical number after twenty or so minutes which completely breaks what little momentum the film had gathered thus far causing it to undignifiedly shit all over itself. And it continued to do this for the films duration. Most of the songs don't even feel relevant to the scene that their contained in, opting to go for the modern R&B style that has been shrinking our nations brains for the past century. This decision has not only dated Rio for any future sufferers but has also highlighted exactly who it's target audience is.

Rio exists, solely to cater to the scum and scourge of modern society, the twenty something mums with their multiple kids who are all jumped up on second grade drugs. You know the type, its the people who shout into mobile phones about who is sleeping with who, or what his or her son did with his or her mother aunt. The type of people that spit on the street, fart in lifts, wear sports gear all the time and watch X-Factor. It is for these very types that Rio attains to entertain. It's a very simple demographic to aim a film at, and as a result the soundtrack, story and humour all suffer from being unoriginal, predictable and overall dull. It will in no doubt succeed with its intended audience however seeing as they all share an IQ that would be poor for a glass of flat Fanta.

On the plus side Rio looks gorgeous. Its bold colour pallet, effective use of lighting and warm feeling visuals provided me with something to look at while the story was going on. It is clear that native Brazilian director Carols Saldanha and his team have put a lot of work and effort into creating the city of Rio. The backgrounds to almost every external shot within the film are a beautiful vista to behold, something which was clearly very important within the films design. Alas though, it's simply a nice distraction from the atrocities being committed in the foreground.

The final plus point to Rio and one that took me a little by surprise was its voice cast. As is very much the usual for an animated film Rio contains a star studded cast that contains Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Jemaine Clement, Jane Lynch and Tracy Morgan to name but a few. For the most part this cast do a superb job with the vocal work. I particularly enjoyed Tracy Morgans contribution which when inserted into the body of a small pit bull painted a big child like grin upon my usually dissatisfied facial features. The best voiceover work however has to be Jemaine Clement who voices the films main villain, Nigel. The work that Jemaine does here reminded me in many ways of Jeremy Irons superb work in The Lion King. Never since Irons has any actor been able to play an animated villain with that pitch perfect mixture of both menace and dark comedy. Clements performance brings surprising depth and danger to the character, something which the film didn't deserve or indeed use to its full potential. In the scheme of things, Irons still reigns supreme in the world of the evil cartoon characters, but it was great to be reminded of how much difference a good piece of casting can make to a film like this.

Now I've made it to the beginning of paragraph eight I feel it may be time to start looking at Rio as a whole and giving my verdict. All in all it's mostly forgettable. There are a couple of laughs to be had and a few of moments where the plot suggests darker things but these moments a very few and far between, buried under a rubbly mess of cheap humour, crap music and lacklustre story telling. Rio is yet another GC animation that failed to impress me, another suggestion that my biased opinion towards anything non Pixar is every bit warranted.

Rio is not the worst of its kind, but its far from the best. Instead it lingers like a bad smell somewhere around the middle with Despicable Me and Madagascar. 

Rio gets...

1.5 out of 5