It wasn’t quite Angry Birds the Movie – no matter how hard it seemed the first one was trying – but clearly the first Rio did well enough somewhere for a sequel to get the green light.
This is one of those kids movies that seems decent enough while it’s taking place in front of you, but as soon as all the bright colours stop swirling around you realise there’s basically nothing there. The story is straight out of the kids movie sequel handbook as the cast of the first film head off into the Amazon so they can be reunited with their long-lost relatives, only some evil loggers are about to trash the relatives’ home … and there’s no suspense or drama in any of this, but it does involve a bunch of birds playing a soccer match which is kind of fun to watch. There are some passable jokes scattered throughout – many of which come from Jemaine Clement as the somehow still alive bad guy cockatoo from the first film.
This has a massive all-star cast – Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, will.i.am, Tracy Morgan, George Lopez, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Jamie Foxx, Andy Garcia, Rita Moreno, Bruno Mars and Kristin Chenoweth – almost all of who fail to make any real impression whatsoever.
It’s the kind of film designed for parents to safely take their kids to then sit in the back row playing with their phones the whole time; even if you’re a big animation fan, this isn’t something to have on your must-see list.