Love takes wing in animated sequel
You’ll root for the birds faced with losing their home, but the plot’s a bit simple for adults
Fanny packs are funny. It’s indisputable truth.
Sure, they may be practical and perhaps hide a paunch, but they’re destined to make you look like a clueless American tourist ripe for rip- offs.
And they are definitely not sexy.
So don’t be surprised when the fanny pack turns out to be the best part of Rio 2 because inside this unheralded and unsightly body purse lies the core theme of this animated sequel: the nature of home.
After all, the hero of our story is a blue macaw named Blu ( Jesse Eisenberg), a lone bird who found his soulmate, another rare blue macaw named Jewel ( Anne Hathaway), in the original outing. Now raising a family of their own at a bird sanctuary in Rio, Blu and Jewel are happy, but they’re aware of their rareness, and it inflicts birdie angst until they hear reports of a blue macaw flock deep in the Amazon rainforest.
Their two human keepers Tulio ( Rodrigo Santoro) and Linda ( Leslie Mann) are desperate to find the flock so they can be protected, but a morally bankrupt businessman in a white Panama hat wants to cut down all the trees — and the only thing that would stop him would be the discovery of rare birds.
It’s a plot ripped from today’s headlines as big business and “tree huggers” square off in a continuing fight for the future, with big business once again wearing the black moustache of the bad guy.
The heroic plumage belongs to the macaws. They band together as a flock to protect their nesting grounds. But for Blu, there’s the added challenge of fitting into the wild after being raised as a pet in the United States.
Blu is the tourist in the fanny pack. He’s kind and polite, but he’s incredibly naive about how the world really works, and the place he came from.
So as the wild birds try to reprogram the goof in the fanny pack, Blu must decide what he’s really made of, and whether his love of humans is a betrayal of the flock, or its saving grace.
The issues are meaty and relevant, and in any other context than a kids’ movie, they’re generally considered “complex.”
But isn’t that the beauty of seeing a kids’ movie?
All the grown- up evils of the universe are distilled down to a morally obvious equation that values life and peace above all else — complete with an affirming and uplifting soundtrack.
Rio 2 delivers every piece of these important kid- movie ingredients, but outside of Kristin Chenoweth as a toxic frog in love with a flightless cockatiel named Nigel ( Jemaine Clement), it feels a little more formula than the first movie.
The colour and sounds of Brazil ensure Rio 2 keeps its exotic plumage, but the plot and pastiche characters come straight out of Southern California’s big fat fanny pack.