Rio
User Score
7.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 175 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 145 out of 175
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 175
  3. Negative: 15 out of 175

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  1. Palino007
    Jun 4, 2011
    1
    No fun, no good characters and downright boring. As a big fan of animated movies, I was greatly disappointed in this one. For me - the biggest downside is, that while other animated movies often feature cute animals, are colorful, there are songs in them, and so on - little kids love that. But the movies have the other side, which offers fun for an older viewer. Remember the King Julian character from Madagascar ? Well, Rio does not have that other side.… Expand
  2. Shiira
    May 4, 2011
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It was a tale of two Brazils did ex-Talking Heads frontman David Byrne impart stateside in the first two volumes of a compilation album series called "Brazil Classics" that he oversaw(on the heels of the new wave band's swansong "Naked"), going so far as to handpicking the songs himself from a profusion of idiosyncratically talented indigenous artists, who sang about deceptively apolitical matters in their native Portugese language. By lending his celebrity to a genre that most people associated with the Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz smash sixties hit "The Girl from Ipanema", the forward-looking Byrne was able to rescue the Brazilian sound from the world music ghetto. Released in 1989, "Brazil Classics I: Beleza Tropical" highlighted an art movement called tropicalismo, which among other things, was a stylistic fusion born out of political unrest following the ouster of the country's president in a coup d'etat(known as the Coup d'etat of 1964). Once the dust settled, the new regime would inflict Brazil with two decades of strict military rule, in which artists(such as Gilberto Gil & Caetano Veloso) faced heavy censorship from government authorities. In Hector Babenco's "Pixote", the shockingly young street urchin(played by Ramon de la Silva), one of the countless victims of post-coup Brazil, is forced into thievery by default, due to poverty and other social ills so ingrained in the country's infrastructure, most prominently, a corrupt reform school where officials have no inclination to rehabilitate these juvenile delinquents, the hardened criminals of the future. Thirteen years after the tropicalist crusade's manifesto "Tropicalia ou Panis et Circensis"(an album whose title comes from a Veloso song) declared the collective's intentions to against the Brazilian establishment, the grassroots movement was clearly still very much alive, mixing pop and politics in one key scene. When the boys' institution has an open house, the moviegoer can see and hear how the ideological innovation of tropicalismo is put forth by the house band, whose lead singer, an inmate, denigrates his former hero Roberto Carlos because the newly politicized performer now sees "The King" as an American imperialist. By comparison, in "Rio", whose samba music(a genre that Byrne highlighted with "Brazil Classics 2: O Samba") is perceived as being less political than tropicalismo, proves its near-apolitical nature in a scene where Blu declares, "I hate samba! Every song sounds the same," in which the bird prefers instead, the adult-contemporary stylings of Lionel Richie. After all, he's practically American, having been kidnapped from his native Brazil as a hatchling. Ultimately, "Rio" is in agreement with the macaw's implied ideology of American superiority. San Paolo, the locale where much of "Pixote" takes place, is left behind for Rio, where the titular character and his gang are utilized as drug dealers by a small-time kingpin. It's the same place where Fernando lives, probably up in the mountains far away from the rich Brazilians who tend to reside near the ocean. In "Rio", far from being a social critique about the economic disparity among its people like the Barbenco film, nevertheless, presents a sanitized version(completely incidental) of the long-standing repercussions from Brazil's tumultuous past, in which Fernando(think of him as a Disney-fied Pixote), a street orphan, who is not naturally bad, aids and abets a ring of bird thieves as a survival tactic. Roberto's unlawful actions, however, are judged unfavorably by the moviegoer because the kidnapping of the cerulean macaws undermines the American heroine's goal to see her beloved pet advance an endangered species, whereas in "Pixote", the boy's criminal activities in this neo-realist classic(the film also functions as an ethnography) exists in a vacuum. The absence of a dialectical relationship between the west and the third world makes it permissible for an American audience to openly root for their delinquency since the victims are locals; it's Brazilian on Brazilian crime. "Rio", albeit a children's movie, still is awfully disingenuous to expect Fernando(whose R-rated self would be dealing drugs, or worse, selling his body in an analogous film) to act against his own economic interests by helping his former victims track down the missing birds. Similar to John Sayles' "Casa de los babys", in which a well-meaning tourist gives a book to a homeless child; a worthless artifact to somebody who is hungry and can't read, likewise, what cultural currency could the breeding of two blue macaws possible be in store for the penniless Brazilian child? "Rio" promotes the fiction that the ornithologist and the American woman would adopt Fernando. Not everybody can be Angelina Jolie. A soundtrack consisting of choice tropicalismo cuts would slice through the bulls*it of the situation. Alas, it's all a party to "Rio".… Expand
  3. nbozinator
    Apr 20, 2011
    0
    this movie is much like inception, in my view, it had good qualitys that were just let down by underdevelopment and lack of any real story, the introduction of samba was one of these qualities it could have been taken so much further when reall it was just tacked on like the story which is my biggest gripe, with no real plot, and yes i may be getting to old for this, the story is predictable and annoying turning this movie more into a 'cringe-fest ' rather than, letting you enjoy the music and colourful animation… Expand
  4. dogten
    Jun 15, 2011
    1
    This was an extremely painful to watch movie. I kept looking at my watch wanting it to please end. On a positive note a 10 year old girl would find it highly entertaining on a rainy day. Now a pair of 13 year old boys... not so much. UNWATCHABLE.
  5. artofthemix
    Jul 17, 2011
    0
    Insipid. Painfully so. Cliche ridden. Inane. Ugh. Terrible. Even my eight year old found it lame. Hollywood always dupes me. I've given up on them.
  6. tatevp
    Aug 15, 2011
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is a charming movie where birds poke their heads off. (hint don't Watch, sucks)… Expand
  7. zizzoT
    Nov 27, 2011
    3
    Enough with the rapping cute animals. Enough with the talking animal cartoons in general. They can be great, but it's too much. They're starting to turn into movies with these ghetto creatures, such as birds, who will always have a certain scene where they rap. Cheap laughs. Cheap. This movie was unoriginal, and I found myself almost, never laughing. Though I won't give it a 0, because I felt that it could have been so much more. It could have been original. It could have been so much better, but I think they tried to play it safe by getting these celebrities to do the voices of these birds to make this film enjoyable. I need a good story. This was bad.… Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
63 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 29 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 29
  3. Negative: 0 out of 29
  1. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    Apr 21, 2011
    63
    A brightly-colored, dizzying pinwheel of 3D animation in which nothing much happens. Sounds like summer is here early.
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  2. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    Apr 21, 2011
    40
    So does Rio measure up to the insanely great standard set by Pixar? Visually, yes.
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  3. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    Apr 15, 2011
    63
    Notwithstanding some allusions to "Lady and the Tramp," the characters and their comic high jinks are nothing special, but the the getaway gives us spectacular 3-D images of the city.
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