Review: Rio

Watching Rio feels a little bit like this

Making a children's movie is a surefire way to make a lot of money at the box office. Rio opened with the most lucrative weekend in 2011, making over 40 million dollars. In second place is the animated Rango, which opened with 36 million and now has made almost 120 million since it's opening. I definitely understand parents wanting  90 minutes of their kid's time to be filled so they can catch their breath, it's just frustrating when movie makers take advantage of that. Kids will be entertained through the bright colors, but Rio doesn't deliver on any other level. Unfunny, boring, and relentlessly dumb.. Welcome to Rio.

I would be lying if I said I didn't have high hopes for this movie. The star studded cast includes: Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Will. I. Am., Jamie Foxx, Leslie Mann, and Tracy Morgan. Eisenberg plays "Blu" an endangered bird who is taken from his comfortable home to go to Brazil so he can mate with the last female of his species. Things get a little tricky when the black market bird traders get involved! (seriously..) Blu and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) must escape these crooks and overcome Blu's inability to fly to make it back to Blu's owner. There's never any real sense of danger as the bad guys are bumbling fools from the beginning. In fact, they seem pretty nice.

The plot sets up a plethora of slapstick jokes. Honestly, I don't think the movie goes 2 minutes without some character getting hit in the head or falling over or tripping another character. Apparently, every character being excessively uncoordinated makes for some big laughs...  Any other jokes they have are predictable and not funny. With such a funny cast, it was disappointing to see none of them live up to their comedic potential.

With a lackluster opening weekend for any movie ahead of us, It's pretty likely that Rio will be number 1 again this weekend and rack in a lot of money. Save yourself the pain, don't go see it, go see something that actually took some thought instead. If you need to see a kid's movie, go see Rango at the dollar theater, which is clever and hilarious.

Makin Movie Blog Grade