After the success that the first Rio film went through, it was inevitable that Blue Sky Studios would be called upon again by 20th Century Fox for a sequel. That’s always something we’ve known when it comes to the film industry, if a film will do good; you have to churn out a sequel no matter how well the first film had ended. In the case of Rio 2, it was a sequel that quite literally nobody asked for and honestly didn’t need either. After spending a lot of time watching films that shouldn’t have been made; I’ve realized that studios churning out sequels for films that ended well will always be disastrous aside from in some cases such as Toy Story 4. Let’s take a closer look at Rio 2.
How to Stream or Download Rio 2 Full Movie Online
To stream or to download the sequel to Rio, click on the Download button that is located below this review.
The Movie Review
Rio 2 starts off with the characters of Blu and Jewel staying in Rio de Janeiro, however now they’ve managed to start a family of their own and are starting to repopulate their extremely rare species. News breaks out that there are more Blu Macaws still living in the jungles of the Amazon forest, Linda and her husband Tulio manage to do an expedition there where they find the species thriving. So Blu and Jewel, along with their children Bia, Carla, and Tiago decide to trek the amazon to reunite with their species.
This all becomes a much harder journey as a group of illegal loggers run by the cruel Big Boss decide to rain on Linda’s expedition while Nigel the Sulfur-Crested Cockatoo decides to plot his revenge on Blu, Jewel, and their newly found friends.
The original Rio film dealt with going out of your comfort zone and becoming something you were too afraid to become. The story in Rio 2 tries to do the same, for some reason. The result is an unnecessary tale of going out of your comfort zone, for characters that have already left their comfort zone three years ago in the original film. It’s a hard sell, but giving it a shot; you realize that it still has many good things about it.
The comedy in this film falls completely flat in comparison to the original, with a lot of the original characters reappearing for the same sort of comic relief however it doesn’t land as well due to unprocessed writing. Nico and Pedro are the only characters that still manage to remain consistent throughout the film; however, even most of their jokes manage to fall flat. It is as if the comedy has completely been rewritten from the original film, and broken down into narrower, less intelligent jokes completely dumbed down for children’s ears.
This is fair, as the film does aim to please a younger generation however most of the people that watched the film had also been fans of the original and the unfunny jokes take away from the experience a lot.
The voice acting is just as consistent as it was in the previous film. Jessie Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Jamie Foxx, Jemaine Clement, and Will.i.am all bring their absolute A-Game to this film. The animation sees a stellar upgrade to the quality, the film looks much better than the original which looks great on its own. The only part where the film’s quality has degraded is the characters’ design. Most of the newly introduced characters in the film now look uninspired and honestly quite boring. Almost the entirety of the Blu Macaws that you see in the film will be indistinguishable from one another, perhaps because there is an absolute abundance of them however their designs are very poor.
The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Rio 2 felt like an increasingly lackluster sequel to an exciting and very well-written original film. The closer it got to the climax, the faster I wanted it to end. It sees downgrades in not just the story being fun, but the writing missing the same comedic timing and the characters feeling stale when compared to the designs of the characters in the original film. When compared to the original this is a highly lackluster film, however on its own; it’s just another average movie that I personally would not watch.
