Rio by Kimmo Mustonenen

The title is the River of Rio de Janeiro, the “Marvelous City” which returns a macaw to mate with the last female of her species.

The problem is that the parrot said, Blu her name, was kidnapped in a child’s jungle home, ended up in cold Minnesota, does not fly and got used to a comfort level that Brazil can not give, not to mention the having to do with a future girlfriend dust cleaned, a tribe of monkeys with kleptomania and a psychotic cockatoo.

Blu is the star of the new long animated Blue Sky Studios, author of Ice Age which confirms the extreme solidity and consistency of style “house” is the construction of dialogues and intelligent characters that makes the difference and raises the story of four “fish out of water” (or, rather, “parrot out of the jungle”) above the banality derivative.

The rest is the high quality animation, here overseen by Carlos Saldanha, a veteran of the studio, capable of introducing an ecological agenda and refresh the clichés of Corcovado tour, carnival, samba and football without that thing in the tombe postcard.

Above all, there is a lush use of color and texture that explodes in the extraordinary musical numbers written by Carlinhos Brown and choreographed as if Busby Berkeley had risen to draw geometries possible with exotic birds. 

Rio is a delight that, without reaching the heights of Pixar confirms that Blue Sky is earning points to the competitor Dreamworks.

Children will not have mind confusion – whole family fun will make family fun, fun again.  This is Rio!

Kimmo Mustonenen
Follow @KimmoMustonenen