Rio is a real ride

The jungles of Brazil might be a wild place but they’re like a walk in the park compared to the mean streets of Rio de Janeiro, especially around the time of Carnival. This is especially true if you are a rare blue Spix’s Macaw trying to survive in the age of the illegal exotic animal trade.

At the beginning of Rio, one young fledgling flapper gets nabbed in a net before he learns about his own aerodynamics. Stuck in a box, he is carted off to wintry Moose Lake, Minn. Much like every other cinematic animal in a similar situation, the truck hits a bump, the crate falls off the back and the bird is set free to sing and find adventure.

Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) is immediately discovered by a young girl named Linda (Leslie Mann) who keeps him as a pretty pet. She takes care of him until adulthood when a South American ornithologist named Túlio (Rodrigo Santoro) shows up and explains how Blu is the last male of his species. Luckily, there’s a female named Jewel (Anne Hathaway) in his bird sanctuary back in Brazil. Sounds like a match made in heaven. After all, sometimes you do have to travel across a continent to find your perfect mate.

But there are complications. Blu can’t fly because he has been domesticated for so long. He’s quite happy to stay inside and hang out at Linda’s bookstore. Jewel, on the other wing, only wants to escape Túlio’s indoor aviary. Before she gets the chance, another dirty rotten bird smuggler comes along and chains the two lovebirds together in a birdcage. He’s about to make a big shipment of precious cargo including dozens of other feathered beauties, all captured with the help of Nigel (Jemaine Clement), a bully cockatoo.

Will Linda and Túlio find their precious friends? Will Blu and Jewel be able to free themselves before the smugglers put them on a plane to destinations unknown? Will the bully get his karmic comeuppance? Will Blu ever get over his fear of flying and get out into the world?

These questions propel us as our two true blue bird heroes meet various colourful characters during the course of their adventure. It’s a fun film with some standard storytelling that makes everything as predictable as any Disney movie. It’s like a bird-brained version of Romeo and Juliet but with a happy ending.

How Free Bird didn’t make it onto the soundtrack is a mystery. That oversight aside, there should be much credit given to composer Sergio Mendes, the perfect person for this festive score that makes audiences want to shake their tailfeathers. Rio is not a pure musical but it made sure to include a few good songs in there to liven up this tale. It worked moderately well, something that production company Blue Sky’s other hits like the Ice Age series dared not do.

All in all, put Rio in the ‘Good but not classic’ category. It gets bonus points for Mendes and also seemingly ending without the possibility of a sequel.