If sequels to great movies are often mediocre what about sequels to the mediocre ones?
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“Rio 2” not actually in Rio, rejoins “Blue” and his new family as they adventure to the Amazon where Blue tries desperately once again to fit in while being stalked by enemies new and old. Jesse EIsenberg and Anne Hathaway return to voice Blue and Jewel with Andy Garcia, Kristin Chenoweth, and Bruno Mars joining in to voice some new additions to the cast. As if this movie needed anymore characters to keep track of… or plotlines… or villains… the point is its just too much.
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But before we go further into the darker tones let’s focus on the bright colors of the rio rainbow. (sing RIO RAINBOW) Just like the first one this movie is a treat to look at. The gorgeous colors are highlighted by beautiful animation and the choreographed songs are full of life and joy. Much of that is do to some pretty incredible vocals by Chenoweth and Mars who add quite a bit to the proceedings. And not just musically. Chenoweth especially adds a dash of humor as well. I mean there wasn’t a lot I found hilarious in this, but when I smiled the little pink frog usually had something to do with it.
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The problem is, much like the first, once you get past the pretty colors and vibey music, there isn’t much interesting to engage with. The Ice Age effect is in full swing here where a movie that already had too many characters feels like it has to add new ones and in doing so just adds confusion. And with new characters also comes new storylines, plot developments and character dilemmas. Which would be one thing if they were all interesting and worth paying attention to, but for much of this movie I just found myself bored out of my mind. I mentioned it 3 years ago when the original came out, and I’ll say it again here, I think this is a better movie if you leave the human world out of it. It would at least simplify things a bit. Plus none of the storylines really have much emotion to them either. But the worst thing for me has to be how strained the plot feels. As if every scene screamed, “We’re sorry, we know this is kinda lame, but the first one made us lots of dollars, so we kinda had to do something”
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At the end of the day, Rio 2 is a bloated, less interesting version of the original. The colors are still gorgeous, and the songs are still fun, but not nearly enough to raise this boring cash grab above a C-
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Thanks for checking out this Your Movie Friend review, stay tuned for this review’s “Best Ever” challenge here in bit but first, I’m going to put up some stuff you can click over in this area. If you’d like to subscribe, which I would much appreciate, you can do so by clicking the big gray subscribe button. Want to see more? I’ll put up links here to watch reviews of the other new releases this week; Raid 2, Oculus, and Draft Day. And finally this review’s “Best Ever” Challenge, where you name the best movie ever in a particular category and also try to identify my choice. What is the “the best movie ever where a bird or birds play a major role in the plot ”. I’m more of a early Hitchcock guy so I’m actually going with a movie that begins with a one man band and ends with flying kites. Drop your own answer and a guess at mine in the comments and first person to guess mine gets a point! Thanks and please subscribe!