So, this movie was actually on my list for a while now. There are many American Animated movies but not many that are made by someone other than Disney or Dreamworks in this day and Age. Which is pretty typical, but not really that good. Disney has always been the big Animation studio, always dealing with a secondary, more independent studio. Usually these Secondary ones were made by people who used to work for Disney. Which makes Blue Sky Studios an interesting case. They started as a small animation studio, thought hired by Disney, that worked on the Disney movie, Tron.
After that they made animated shorts until they made "Ice Age". A big hit, they became very dedicated animators and later on made Rio, their second Big Hit. I'm sure a lot of you saw the commercials for this movie and it is actually pretty good. Running at the average Animated movie time of an hour and a half, the movie was actually made by a native Brazilian, which makes me wonder about it. The movie is set primarily in Rio, but almost everything about Rio that is described feels like common knowledge anyone who spent ten minutes of Wikipedia to find. But even then, Rio itself is a very interesting place and the movie does an excellent job of using what they had to set the story.
The movie is technically a Musical, if only because the characters sing, but they don't portray the singing as like a musical. Characters who sing are intentionally singing and giving a performance for the other characters. The songs themselves are pretty general. They make good use of Brazilian Samba music but it is mostly unrecognizable. There were a few catchy tunes, but my favorite song among the bunch is "Hot Wings (I wanna Party)", sung by Will.i.am, Jamie Fox, and Anne Hathaway. The three singers don't blend but rather bounce off each other to show case each of their talents. A lot of people tend to hate on Will.i.am for his over use of Auto-tune and his constant self-promotion, but I've often had a soft spot for him.
The song, Hot Wings, is very corny, with a lot of bad rhymes and jokes, but that's the fun in my opinion. The song was meant, in my opinion, to be a bird version of a generic Club song, and it works. People often feel that songs in musicals need to only be sung good for them to be good. But for me, it is the songs that are intended to not be perfect that come across the most perfect. One of my favorite songs in Quest for Camelot is Ruber's Song, and it is very "bad" with unstable and forced lyrics. But that is some of the best kind. They make the singer feel real. Often times in Musicals, the entire world will drop whenever a song is being sung, and that sometimes feels forced, so when these types of songs come in, that feel like they were being written by non-professionals, it feels more realistic.
The only problem is sometimes the songs are terrible, but luckily Rio doesn't suffer from any bad music. Another good song I like is one of the best examples of a real-life musical number. It has some of the worst lines for a villains song, but it fits so well and it strangely catchy. Not pop-music or musical catchy, more, smile and shake your tush catchy.
Now, onto the characters. The movie stars Jessie Eisenberg as Blue, a flightless Spix's Macaw bird. Taken by Poachers, he ends up being left in Minnesota and taken care of by a little girl who slowly grows up to be the owner of a book shop. This is some of Jessie's best work. True, it's pretty easy to tell who he is behind the CGI, but he brings his usual snark and intelligence to the role. The character feels made by him, with his uncomfortableness but also being very intelligent and socially crippled.
The female lead of the story is Jewel, played by Anne Hathaway as a free bird who hates cages and domestication (something Blue is quite fond of). She doesn't have much in terms of character, but she's likable and quite confident, taking care of herself for the most part.
The best part about this movie in my opinion are how so many of the minor and secondary characters are given so much in terms of personality that no one feels unnecessary. Even Will.i.am plays a good role, even if it's just to act like himself as a bird.
The animation of the birds is amazing as well, they feel so well animated and human, but sometimes the humans themselves get left out of the caliber and skill. Not to say it is bad, it's just, there's a scene where Blue's owner has lost him and she's crying and it looks completely fake. But it's not the animator's fault. Crying in live-action is hard enough for actors, but to successfully animate and show someone crying, especially with their cartoonish art style, it makes it hard to feel the sadness and you just get uncomfortable.
Now, the villain. Played by Jermaine Clement, Nigel is not one of the most complex, but he is a very interesting villain. He is incredibly smart and is a lot more competent than most animated villains. In fact, he's possibly my favorite part of the film. He doesn't have the theatricality of Scar from Lion King or the suaveness of Hades from Hercules, but he is just so smart. I mean it, this movie has him doing some of the best planning out of any animated villain. escaped prisoner in the heart of Rio, hire a hundred monkeys to seek him out (and by hire, I mean intimidate), Monkeys fail? No matter, he knows where their headed now thanks to the monkeys, only have one prisoner, play on the heart of the hero to trick him. He's pretty generic in what he does to be honest, but the way he does it all is just so clever and intimidating.
Now, the plot of the movie. It's a pretty generic plot really. Blue is discovered to be the last of his kind and an Ornithologist from Brazil comes to beg Linda, Blue's owner, to help him keep the species alive. They head there and Blue meets Jewel and the two of them get caught up in a mess with some idiots Poachers and their leader's pet bird, Nigel. The two of them get cuffed together and hilarity ensues with them trying to find a way to get themselves free. They end up meeting Will.i.am and Jamie Fox as a pair of "urban" birds and Rafael, a poetic/romantic Toucan who becomes a great friend to Blue.
By the end, romance ensues between Blue and Jewel / Linda and Tulio and the Poachers are arrested (Nigel get sucked into a plane propeller and de-feathered). The movie is a great flick to watch with your family and there's even a sequel coming in April of 2014. Let's hope Blue Sky does better with the Rio franchise than they did with the Ice Age one.
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