Rio , as the name suggests, is based in the party capital of the world: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and the movie has all the essential elements in it to make it an excellent entertainer and a must one time 3-D watch. It has fun, comedy, action, romance ,music, friendship, party , carnival , love, companionship ….hmphhh if those all were not enough to speak about the movie think of some more adjectives. The movie is brilliantly colorful and full of life, though the story is not totally out of this world , but the presentation is picturesque and catchy. The movie has you smiling all through and you kind of wait for “What next?” even when you can guess it.
The characters of the movie are well thought out and each one plays a vital role in the movie. The movie starts from TinySotta (Minnesota, US) and quickly shifts to Brazil. Blu, a blue macaque , is brought up and taken care by a girl named Lynda and he is so domesticated that he does not even know how to fly, he has a blissful life in a book shop owned by Lynda where he loves to sip his chocolate milk and marshmallows for breakfast. Then a veterinary doctor arrives and convinces Lynda to bring Blu to Rio as he is the only male blue macaque left on the planet and to forward the blue macaque species he must mate with Jewel (our female blue macaque).
The journey begins from here on and we are taken to Rio, Brazil where the preparations for the famous carnival are underway. Jewel is a energetic and freedom loving bird which is a totally opposite personality from Blu, who loves being domesticated and taken care of by humans. Both of them land in the net of bird smugglers, they are tied with a single chain at their feet and their love grows as the movie proceeds, there are a lot of colorful songs and party songs that await your sight. The smugglers have this evil parakeet called Nigel who is very brutal and ugly. Somehow, the two love birds escape from the smugglers net and the smugglers unleash “evil” Nigel after them.
From here on new characters in the form of Luiz(the bull dog) , Rafael(the toucan) , Pedro and Nico (two partner birds) play an important role in the movie. The first target is to get the chain off the feet of Blu and Jewel as Blu’s incapability of flight has kind of handicapped both the birds as they can only run to escape the smugglers which is not good enough. Whereas Jewel wants to return to the natural habitat , Blu wants to go back to Minnesota with Lynda. They meet Rafael in the Jungle and he tells them of a friend Luiz ,who can help them break the chain. Then they set out on a journey full of thrills to get to Luiz.
After they do get free, Nigel manages to capture Jewel and Blu follows them through the carnival to save Jewel and then they make a heroic escape from the smugglers and how they do it? how Lynda meets Blu? Do Blu and Jewel stay together or he returns to Minnesota? would be better answered by watching this movie.
Again a reminder to the readers: “If you are watching this movie in digital 3D and not an Imax, please take seats in the front 4-5 row center corner for the best 3D fun”
I would rate this movie 8/10 or maybe 9/10 if you really want to ignore the story line and just fall in love with the fun and colorful setting of the movie.
