RIO 2

2014, Twentieth Century Fox

Animation

Rating: G

Approx. 101 mins.

THE STORY:

Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) are back with their 3 chicks in tow. When they learn that Blu's former companion, Linda (Leslie Mann), and her partner, Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), have discovered blue macaws living in the wild, the birds head off to the Amazon. There, they discover the tribe, headed by Jewel's father (Andy Garcia). While Jewel slips easily back into place within the tribe, Blu is a fish out of water who seems incapable of pleasing his father-in-law.
As well as dealing with the coldness of his father-in-law, Blu is being stalked by Nigel (Jemaine Clement), the malicious cockatoo he ran up against in the first movie. After their previous tangle, Nigel lost a considerable number of feathers and the ability to fly. What he gained was an obsessive desire for revenge.
As if these two antagonists weren't enough, developers are illegally clear-cutting swaths of the rain forest, threatening the birds' habitat. Blu rallies the birds to lead them in an assault on the developers. Not only is he successful in driving them back, but the area is turned into a nature sanctuary.      

QUESTIONABLE LANGUAGE:

• lame

VIOLENCE:

• some animals get eaten by predators

TEACHING POINTS:

• Birds of a feather stick together-- and we're often more 'of a feather' than we might think
• environmental messaging about deforestation and loss of animal habitats

THE UPSHOT:

The plot is a bit thin to sustain 101 minutes without time seeming to drag. What really saves the movie, though, are the voice casting, the music, the humour, the beauty of the animation, and the cleverness of the script. Jemaine Clement and Kristin Chenoweth make the whole Nigel/ Gabi side-story a stand out, and Andy Garcia is pitch perfect. The female characters are strong and independent, and are not sexualized. The male characters all come to realize that they each have their own strengths and areas of expertise, and earn each other's respect.

There's nothing really objectionable about Rio 2, and a lot that is enjoyable. Plus, I've seen so many bad or mediocre movies lately that it just seems so much better.   

4/5