Rio 2 Review: A Harmless but Mediocre Sequel

Written By: Dave

Rio, an animated film from 2011 made a lot of money, so a sequel was bound to happen. Now, 3 years later, that sequel has arrived in theaters. Rio 2 has a simple plot: Blu (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (voiced by Anne Hathaway) discover they are not the last of their species, so they travel to the Amazon to find the rest of the flock. There, Jewel reunites with her long lost family, and Blu has to prove he can fit into a natural environment as opposed to the big city.

Now, what I just described above is one of what borders on a dozen plots this movie has going at once. There is an insane number of characters in this movie. From Blu, Jewel, and their family, there's the villainous Nigel and his crew, to Roberto the smooth talking Spixs macaw, to Blu's friends from Rio who follow them to the Amazon, to Linda and Tulio going around trying to stop some evil loggers, to the loggers themselves, this movie has far more characters then even Madagascar 3 had. This really feels like multiple scripts for possible Rio sequels were all combined into one. 

I'll give the movie this; the voice actors aren't too bad. I think Jesse Eisenberg and Andy Garcia did very well in their roles. Jemaine Clement and Kristen Chenoweth had good comedic chemistry with each other. Their scenes were probably the highlight of the movie for me. 

The other big issue I have with this film is that it's just not very funny. While I did get a chuckle or two from time to time, there just aren't many memorable jokes. While I'm sure the younger audiences will get a lot of laughs (the one in my theater did), this really isn't something older viewers will find hilarious. The animation is gorgeous though, but by this point, that's something we've come to expect from big studio animated releases. I did like the designs of the birds, and they all did stick out in my mind.

Overall, Rio 2 is a harmless movie. There's nothing really great to recommend, but if you have kids who want to see this, you won't be sitting in the theater miserable for an hour and a half. It goes by quick enough to just avoid getting on one's nerves, but I can't really recommend this if you just want to see an animated film by yourself. I give Rio 2 a 2.5 out of 5.