'Rio'

'Rio' (G) (2 stars)

Writers: Don Rhymer, Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Will i. am,
Jamie Foxx, Jemaine Clement, George Lopez, Alanna Ulbach

"Rio" is what is wrong with most animated movies today. The charm of simple, beautiful and fun animated movies like "The Illusionist", "Up" and Wall E" are being taken over by noisy and messy ones. Rare is that special animated movie that comes out and it is pretty much always from Pixar once a year. "Rio" has too many characters that I couldn't keep track of and none that I will remember a day from now. Also the music is lively and vibrant but again I can't remember any of the songs.

"Rio" tells the story of a Mccaw named Blu who is smuggled out of Rio de Janeiro and winds up in a street in cold Minnesota where a girl named Linda finds him. They grow up together and become life long friends. Linda is approached by Tulio who is a scientist who tells Linda Blu is the last of the male species of Mccaw that has to mate with a female to preserve the species so they all go to Rio de Janeiro. Blu then meets the female Mccaw named Jewel and they have a rough start but grow to like each other.

The opening scenes are simple, beautiful, charming, quiet and colorful. I love the opening scenes in Rio de Janeiro and I love the voice work. Jesse Eisenberg is the perfect choice to voice Blu and Anne Hathaway is charming and a good choice to play a sweet but head strong Jewel. I like the opening song and the music starts off promising and all seems good. Blu has to learn how to fly so he can escape smugglers and he hooks up with a family of Toucans to help him fly and evade capture.

When the family and the smuggling birds enter the picture this is when the movie falls apart. The movie introduces more characters and then more and the movie starts to get crowded. I couldn't keep track of everyone and no one is memorable except for Blu and Jewel. The movie should have stayed with the four principles, the head smuggler voiced well by Jemaine Clement and the Toucan family. But no, the movie has to add sidekicks and more sidekicks and the movie gets too noisy. The screen is cluttered and of course we need a big chase scene. Why do you need to have the movie end in action scenes? Don't you think kids today are smart enough that they don't need wall to wall eye candy and noise to keep them interested?

Look at past classic, animated movies like "Wall E" and "Up" and even "Tangled" which is much better. We spend time with the main characters, the movie doesn't hit us over the head with special effects and weak songs. The movie takes it's time to establish the story, atmosphere and characters. I don't mind having a chase at the end or a physical conflict but make it like it was in "Up" which had a busy ending but you could follow it. I couldn't follow anything here even though the flying scenes are cool in 3D. "Rio" has the same problem "Rango" earlier this year had, it has little charm after a while and I really didn't care for anyone because the style of the movie buries them. Little kids might like this but adults will be bored and movies like "Up" never bored adults.