--- title: Rio 2 Movie Review description: It's back to the rain forest for Blu and Jewel, in a colorful animated feature that imposes an overstocked plot on some very beguiling music canonical: https://time.com/57096/rio-2-movie-review/ author: Richard Corliss article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-10T15:03:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:14:07.359Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Rio 2 Movie Review og:description: It's back to the rain forest for Blu and Jewel, in a colorful animated feature that imposes an overstocked plot on some very beguiling music og:url: https://time.com/57096/rio-2-movie-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a5ca30ff34ebf0a/69868a03169ab01b1f278bc6/ap85439851645_6.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Rio 2 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Rio 2 Movie Review twitter:description: It's back to the rain forest for Blu and Jewel, in a colorful animated feature that imposes an overstocked plot on some very beguiling music twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a5ca30ff34ebf0a/69868a03169ab01b1f278bc6/ap85439851645_6.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # REVIEW: _Rio 2_: Meet the Flockers > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Apr 10, 2014 3:03 PM UTC  This image released by 20th Century Fox shows a scene from the animated film "Rio 2." (AP Photo/20th Century Fox- Blue Sky Studios) This image released by 20th Century Fox shows a scene from the animated film "Rio 2." (AP Photo/20th Century Fox- Blue Sky Studios)20th Century Fox/Blue Sky Studios by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Apr 10, 2014 3:03 PM UTC Don’t tell the kids seeing _Rio 2_ this weekend, but the story line about the endangered status of the Spix’s macaw — the blue beauties voiced in this movie and its predecessor by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway — is no cartoon fairy tale. [According to Birdlife.org](http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=1546%20), the Spix is in severe danger of extinction, due to “destruction of the specific gallery woodland habitat on which the species apparently depended” and “the illegal live bird trade.” In the 2011 _Rio_, that rapacious trade throughout Brazil’s rain forest led to the capturing of Blu (Eisenberg), who was transported to the U.S. and found by the bird-loving bookkeeper Linda (Leslie Mann). Raised as a nerd bird, Blu returned to Rio to mate with another survivor, the perky, indigenous Jewel (Hathaway). In the new sequel, Blu, Jewel and and their three offspring — studious Bia (Amandla Stenberg), mischievous Tiago (Pierce Gagnon) and teen-misfit Carla (Rachel Crow) — fly back to the rain forest, and Jewel’s long-lost kin, for a very special episode of _Meet the Flockers_. **(READ: Corliss’s** [**review of** **_Rio_**](http://entertainment.time.com/2011/04/14/rio-movie-review/%20)**)** All very sweet and tweet, until human civilization sends in its giant beasts — dozens of earthmovers — to cut down the parrots’ imperiled habitat. Fox News Channel may take this as eco-ganda, another attempt from left-wing Hollywood to poison the minds of little ones, as _The Lorax_ and _The LEGO Movie_ supposedly did. But director Carlos Saldanha and the new film’s writers (Carlos Kotkin, Jenny Bicks, Yoni Brenner and the late Don Rhymer) didn’t invent the threat to the Spix’s macaw. As Birdlife.org reports: “The last known individual in the wild disappeared at the end of 2000, and no others may remain.” And now, on with the show! **(READ:** [**The ‘Socialist toys’ in** **_The LEGO Movie_**](http://time.com/4983/the-lego-movie-socialist-toys-are-just-another-brick-in-the-wall/)**)** _Rio 2_ faces the problem of any animated sequel: introducing new characters — here Jewel’s stern father Eduardo (Andy Garcia), his sister Mimi (Rita Moreno) and the preeningly macho Roberto (Bruno Mars) to stoke Blu’s envy — while finding work for all the creatures in the first episode. Tullio (Rodrigo Santoro), who protected Jewel while she was in captivity, returns, as do Blu’s rambunctious bird pals Rafael (George Lopez), Nico (Jamie Foxx) and Pedro (will.i.am). The cockatoo villain Nigel (Jemaine Clement), seemingly kaput at the end of the first _Rio_, is improbably revived and gets a cross-species love interest in a poisonous frog named Gabi (Kristen Chenoweth). Only the pit bull Luiz (Tracy Morgan) is left behind, though he shows up at the end, somehow having navigated the 2,000-mile inland trek. A little less agreeable and way more aggressive than its better begetter, _Rio 2_ has the overstuffed agenda of a movie that’s been focus-grouped to death. Realizing that an animated feature’s prime customers are moms who take their kids, the filmmakers paint a feisty sensitivity on the adult females, Jewel and Linda, while turning Blu and Tullio into clumsy, stubborn dolts, who endure more humiliation than a freshman at a fraternity hazing. (The two males are subject to about a dozen castration gags.) **(SEE:** [**How Disney and Pixar toyed with motherhood**](http://time.com/53766/movie-moms-pixar-disney/)**)** More focus-grouping: Anticipating Brazil’s hosting of this summer’s World Cup, the movie conjures an all-bird soccer match, avian Quidditch, which the city-bred Blu naturally screws up. Nominally an adult, he is essentially a troubled kid in a hostile environment — like the protagonist of virtually every animated feature dating back to _Dumbo_ and _Bambi_ and up to _Toy Story 3_ and _Frozen_. Jewel feels at home in the jungle, to which Blu, who can’t cope without his fanny pack and smartphone GPS, is the intruder. She Tarzan, he Jane. Many a classic musical comedy, of the kind the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced through, had a disposable script and ineffable production numbers. _Rio 2_, no classic, comes alive whenever it sings and moves. The movie’s opening celebrates New Year’s Eve with the vivid “Sapo Cal,” colors and characters exploding everywhere to the samba percussion of composers Sergio Mendes, Carlinho Brown and John Powell. Hathaway exercises her expert chops on the ballad “Don’t Go Away”; Broadway legend Moreno and previous non-singer Garcia duet on “Beautiful Creatures.” In fact, most of the good comedy in _Rio 2_ is connected with the music, as in a snatch of spectacular funny-intentional bad singing (by Bebel Gilberto, daughter of João Gilberto), or when some cute birdies start to sing “Memory” (from _Cats_ — already a sly joke), and are instantly devoured by a panther. **(SEE: Our choice of the** [**all-TIME 25 Best Animated Features**](http://entertainment.time.com/2011/06/23/the-25-all-time-best-animated-films/#lady-and-the-tramp-1955)**)** Clement, nearly stealing the limelight with his Anglo-ham foppery, gets an unnecessary but delightful solo — Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” — and supports [Chenoweth’s knockout diva turn, “Poisonous Love”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5JEQY3SmCU%20) (by Brown, Powell and lyricist Randy Rogel), which Gabi sings to the sleeping Nigel. Escalating from Broadway patter song to _Tristan und Isolde_ intensity, it challenges Josh Gad’s “In Summer,” from _Frozen_, as the cleverest and most passionately rendered original number in recent movie history. Enjoy the silly symphony of jungle colors, in that lush _Avatar_ palette, and unexpected moments of inspiration like the montage of the Blu family’s flight to the rain forest, in which tourist sites are fleshed out from pop-up book items to the fulfill the movie’s 3-D potential. Even when it’s coarse and calculating, this is an eager entertainment machine that will keep the kids satisfied. 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