Rio

     Holy hell Blue Sky Productions! Stop making Ice Age! Your one-off, original idea movies are WAY better!
     Robots, despite it's dark double meanings, is a great movie! Horton Hears a who, while I have problems with, is good too! Hell, the first Ice Age was good as well before you started churning out sequels like Disney with gemstones in their eyes! And now Rio, a movie with good story, a good pace, and memorable characters...

     The story follows Blu, a Blue Macaw who was smuggled out of the Brazilian Rainforest when he was but a chick, who goes with his owner Linda, to Rio to meet a female Blue Macaw to hopefully save their species. Some different smugglers with the same type of old plane steal the two macaws and intend to sell them to the highest bidder. They manage to escape, and hijinks ensue.

     The characters... The characters are quite a bit of fun. Blu himself, while a bit awkward, is very intelligent, and somewhat compassionate, something surprisingly rare in non-Pixar films. Jewel (The female Blue Macaw) is pretty smart herself, and fairly independent without coming off as... Well, there isn't really a common term, so I'll explain in an aside:

     Jewel is independent, but isn't actively avoiding the company of a man who seems interested in her. I say this because it is a somewhat common trope that popped up in some nineties movies with a "quirky but lovable" male protagonist. While Jewel is annoyed by him, she isn't outright hostile (at least, after she finds out he's the same species. Before that she tried to claw his face off). So when she begins to like him, it is more believable. The word people from TVtropes use to describe her, is Tsundere, which is harsh-sweet. The key marking of a Tsundere is of course being harsh, but also the capacity to be sweet, and switching between them at believable points in time. The girls from the nineties movies with the "quirky but lovable" male love interest... They fall under "defrosting ice queen" which is someone who is harsh, but becomes nicer as they warm up.
     I chose to explain this in an aside because it is the "Defrosting Ice Queen" trope that Jewel thankfully avoids. You see, while an Icy character that warms up over time is a good character, it doesn't work very well in the span of one movie. It tends to feel like a snap when the Ice Queen defrosts in a single movie, making it seem unnatural. The reason for this is because they go from harsh-harsh-harsh-MEAN! to being sweet-loving-submissive-go-make-me-a-sandwich-woman in a matter of minutes. If they show sweetness throughout the film alongside their harshness, then they are a tsundere, and them eventually being only sweet to the love interest makes sense. If they are constantly mean to the love interest, suddenly warming up to them doesn't seem plausible.
      End of the aside, we may now resume praising this sapphire in the rough.

     It is very refreshing for characters one would assume to be annoying (pretty much every single bird besides the villain and Jewel) actually turn out to be good characters. I was fully expecting to be annoyed by the two singing birds, but they have some good lines in addition to some good songs. Actually, all the comedy relief characters tend to not overstay their welcome, and give some good lines as well.

     I actually don't have any problems with this movie. Strange, I know... I can find problems with The Secret of NiHM (here's a hint: the secret is a terrible pace) but I can't find problems with a movie that fell through the cracks. Sure the film isn't perfect, no film is, but it did exactly what it needed to in order to be a good film. I liked it, and I will likely add it to my list of animated movies to save for when I have children.


... Well, if I must nitpick, I suppose the songs, while they hold your attention, aren't really memorable. But, not only is this the studio's first musical, but effort was put into the songs to make them good (unlike some Disney sequels... and sequels to Don Bluth movies. Poor voice acting kid...) so I am willing to give them a free pass on it. Plus I'm not a fan of the style of music, so it is possible that I don't find them catchy, but another person might. I do find german pop music catchy, so I'm probably not the person to talk about Samba. ^^'


This has been Fixer Sue, telling Blue Sky to become mainstream with movies besides Ice Age! I don't want to be a stereotypical internet Hipster, saying that I liked you guys before you were mainstream! I want to like you at the same time!