RIO (2011)

Rio is brought to you by the number 420 - because it's about the only thing that will make this film less of a 'bird'en.

Jesse Eisenberg (correction - Academy Award nominee Jesse Eisenberg) makes a bad damn decision to be part of Rio - as does Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx, and Academy Award nominee Anne Hathaway. Rio proves to be another classic example of how a film can have the talent to back it up, but no originality to move it forward. Clearly these three actors were just too polite to walk away from this project after reading the this script, or they had their iPod on while reading the parts and couldn't hear the lines as come out of their talented mouths (Did that sound gay? Yeah, that probably sounded gay...).

Because you haven't heard the same story before (sarcasm abounds), I'll tell you a little but about Rio. Once upon a time there was a bird named Blu (Eisenberg) who fell off an exotic animal truck in Moose Lake, Minnisota. He was picked up by Linda (Leslie Mann) who raised him to be a cocky bird who never learned to fly. One day (out of the 'blue' perhaps?) Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), a bird mater from South America, comes knocking telling Linda that Blu is the last male of his species. If there are to be any other birds of his feather, he'll have to mate with the last remaining female of his species - Jewl (Anne Hathaway).

So the trio heads down to Rio where after a failed Thanksgiving (you know, where Blu stuffs the bird?), Blu and Jewel escape only to be apprehended by a group of thugs looking to sell the rare birds on the black market. When the two escape from the cunning bad guy (and two cliché idiot sidekicks), they end up on the run and get into all sorts of wacky adventures while on the search for Blu's owner, Linda. Those adventures include two stereotypical (and racially-profiled) birds, voiced by Foxx and Geporge Lopez - as well as a decently entertaining bulldog named Luiz (Tracy Morgan). To top it all off, take a guess as to how in love Blu and Jewl fall... it just goes on and on, people.

I guess with Rio, I'd hoped that Hathaway had left alone Hoodwinked Too to avoid another animated disaster (this just in - I was wrong). Am I saying Rio would or could have never worked? No, I'm just saying it might have worked better under the supervision of Disney/Pixar director Brad Bird (seriously, no pun intended - he's just really good). At least Bird knows that physical humour every three seconds doesn't necessarily dictate good humour.

I am giving this clichéd mess of a film a big, fat closed door. For kids, sure - they may giggle a time or two. For adults - Rio will please you about as much as writer/director Carlos Saldanha's previous works did, such as Robots and Ice Age (both relatively unamazing, as well) - which also had big names be part of them as well. Come to think of it - are Saldanha films where big name actors (who have just won Oscars, especially) and their careers go to die? Maybe. Coming up next year - Jeremy Renner in Asparagus - a film about a young asparagus plant who's self-conscious about the way his pee smells (yes, that's based on a quote from Elf).

*Stills courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Animation