Rio

Certificate: U

Running Time: 96 minutes

Director: Carlos Saldanha

From the creators of Ice Age, Rio tells the tale of blue macaw called Blu (so clever - I bet they spent days thinking up that one!), a domesticated bird that can’t fly, living in Minnesota. But now the last male of his species, he retreats to his native country of Brazil by order of an ornithologist to save their kind. The casting was awful; the usually brilliant Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg and Jamie Foxx have very annoying voices for animation. Will.I.Am was also thrown into the mix - also hugely irritating. George Lopez and Jemaine Clement were the only characters worth watching. The actual animation of the film was really well done, and was definitely the best part of the whole movie. Very predictable, with a plot layout copied from about a million other animated epics, and almost every scene and character seemed based upon something or someone previously seen on our screens. For example, look out for the first scene in which you see the monkeys - remind anyone of the opening scene of the lemurs from Dreamworks’ ‘Madagascar’? If it was one of the only animated movies in the world, easily 5 stars. But it isn’t. 

Rating: **