Must See Movie...

A Masterpiece!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's a jungle out there for Blu, Jewel and their three kids after they're hurtled from Rio de Janeiro to the wilds of the Amazon. As Blu tries to fit in, he goes beak-to-beak with the vengeful Nigel, and meets his father-in-law. Those who loved the original Rio from 2011 will not be disappointed by the sequel, it adapts on the original's story plus Blu and Jewel have kids this time around and they were really funny and adorable. Once again there's some great messages for little kids and their parents plus the voice acting was once again terrific alongside the new voices as well and it's definitely a very underrated sequel that did deserved a bit more recognation just like the previous film too. (A+)

The central message of family over tech is good and all, but if you look at the way its brought together, it makes you question the movie's moral code.Look at the events. first, the movie seems simple, a family trip to visit the mother's relatives, however as the movie goes on it becomes clear that the mother never really intended for this to just be a trip. She clearly wants to stay and raise her children inside her colony and though this isn't an outright bad idea, the sneaky way she goes about it makes be really question her character. As I watched I even started going back to the first movie and realized that given the sequence of events, she could be rethinking her entire marriage.Not only that but throughout the movie Blue himself really is picked on for a lot of things that simply weren't his fault and is subsequently treated as if they were done deliberately. From the berries to the sports game and seeking approval from Jewel's father. Jewel should know what kind of husband she has and while I fully accept trying to help someone better themselves, It very much seems like she is literally trying to make him into something that is much more like her old boyfriend. Which affects Blue's self-esteem.Then there are the poachers who could have been left out to tell the truth. Nigel was already here and the poachers seem very after though. I mean when Blue encounters the poachers and just up and decides that he doesn't need humans anymore than I really don't understand anything. Was his blatant love for his owner and society really so fickle that meeting this one group of bad people could change that. Made even more stupid by the fact that he almost immediately does an 180 and goes back to loving humans again, making the first freak out even more confusing.There are a lot of horrible plot holes and clichés I can also complain about, but I'll just finish with simply stating that the original was great and didn't need a sequel, especially not thi one.

Getting back into thinking about how narratives get put together, I am reminded of how many radically different strategies there are in approaching a film.If you talk to the (old) Pixar guys, what you'll hear is a focus on story, a cinematic notion of story, above all else. The story comes first; characters emerge whether they are promising franchise characters or not. It is all about making the flow engaging and creating a lasting experience.As I go through my list of valued filmmakers, I can pull out a number of different approaches: Ruiz looks for the dissonance between narrative layers and removes the middle. Cronenberg finds a disturbing edge, creates a situation, then builds things to present it. Spielberg makes comics that are refined in story boards then mechanically reproduced in film. I'll have to think about the varieties.Then we have this guy, Saldanha, who has sold a lot of tickets to happy viewers. The strategy here seems to be to create characters above all else. Make characters. Find some kind of simple enclosing story, it doesn't matter what. Have all the characters create their own local, small static narrative. Then just embellish and display those.I suppose this approach has been refined over on the half hour TeeVee comedy side where story is just an excuse to have character spaces interact. I am always surprised when I see this work, and it plainly does here, though none of the characters are compelling in the ordinary way.I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. In other films, I see stories getting ever more compelling in surprising ways and exhibiting self-awareness with increasing sophistication. These are fun movies, not art films I'm talking about. So it makes sense to have films like Ice Age and Rio for minds that don't work that way, that have shorter narrative attention spans and undeveloped narrative sense.While this is designed for international audiences, and made by a Brazilian and set in Brazil. But most of the voices and nearly all the songs are hip hop urban style that is uniquely American.

'RIO 2': One and a Half Stars (Out of Five)Sequel to the 2011 hit animated kids movie 'RIO'; about two blue macaws who fall in love, in Rio de Janiero, despite their many differences. They now have three kids (in this film) and their family travels to the Amazon, in order to meet up with other rare blue macaws there. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha and written by Don Rhymer, Carlos Kotkin, Jenny Bicks, Yoni Brenner and Saldanha. Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Jemaine Clement, George Lopez, Jamie Foxx, will.i.am and Tracy Morgan all return as voice actors. They're joined this time around by Kristin Chenoweth, Miguel Ferrer, Andy Garcia and many others. Despite all of the talent involved, the movie sucks; just like the first one does.Blu (Eisenberg) and Jewel (Hathaway) are happily living in Rio together, with their three children, as the story begins. Linda Gunderson (Mann), Blu's old owner, is on an expedition in the Amazon, with her ornithologist husband, Tulio (Santoro), when they discover that other blue macaws are living there. Blu and Jewel hear about it, over the news, and decide to journey to the Amazon to help find the other birds (since they're family). Once there they must battle evil loggers and their old nemesis Nigel (Clement), the cockatoo from the first film.The film is beautifully animated and the voice actors do a good job playing their characters (but not much is required of them). I can see how the movie could be somewhat funny, and amusing, to kids but only really young ones. It's mostly full of just silly childish humor, with nothing of any value to offer anyone (other than the simplest forms of entertainment, for children). I didn't like the first movie either though; so if you enjoyed it you might like this sequel too.Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpJHaK5PsZc