Rio (film)

Template:Film infobox Rio, often promoted as Rio: The Movie, is a 2011 American 3D computer-animated musical comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Carlos Saldanha. is based on the jungle book  and its  The title refers to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where the film is set. The film features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jemaine Clement, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro and Jake T. Austin. It tells the story of Blu (Eisenberg), a male blue macaw who is taken to Rio de Janeiro to mate with a female named Jewel (Hathaway), a free-spirited macaw.  The two eventually fall in love, and together they have to escape from being smuggled by Nigel (Clement), a cockatoo. The theme song, "Telling the World" was sung by Taio Cruz.

Saldanha developed his first story concept of Rio in 1995, in which a penguin is washed up in Rio. However, Saldanha learned of the production of the films Happy Feet and Surf's Up, and changed the concept to involve macaws and their environments in Rio. He proposed his idea to Chris Wedge in 2006, and the project was set up at Blue Sky. The main voice actors were approached in 2009. During production, the crew visited Rio de Janeiro and also consulted with an expert on macaws at the Bronx Zoo to study their movements.

20th Century Fox released the film on March 22, 2011 in Brazil, and on April 15, 2011 in the United States. The film received generally positive reviews from film critics. Observers praised the visuals, voice acting, and music. The film was also a box office success, grossing over $484 million worldwide. The film was nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "Real in Rio", but lost to the other nominee, "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets.

Plot

In Brazil, various exotic birds are smuggled out of the country. In Moose Lake, Minnesota, a crate with a male blue macaw hatchling falls out of a truck and is found by Linda Gunderson, who names him Blu. However, Blu is unable to fly and is ridiculed by two Canadian Geese named Chloe and Alice that frequent the outside of Linda's bookstore.

One day, ornithologist Túlio Monteiro invites Blu and Linda to Rio de Janeiro on the condition that Blu, who is the last male of his species, mate with a female macaw. Linda accepts and they fly to Rio, where Blu meets a Red-crested Cardinal named Pedro and his Yellow Canary friend Nico. At Túlio's aviary, Blu meets Jewel, a fiercely independent blue macaw longing to flee into the wilderness. The macaws are captured by Fernando, an impoverished boy, and a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo named Nigel, both of whom work for a group of smugglers led by Marcel. Nigel tells the macaws that he vowed to smuggle exotic birds after his role had been replaced on a television program by a parrot. Blu and Jewel quickly escape Nigel and flee into a jungle.

Fernando meets Linda and Túlio and tells them that Marcel forced him to capture birds, before cooperating with the two to find Blu. Meanwhile, Blu and Jewel meet a Toco toucan named Rafael, who offers to take them to his bulldog friend Luiz to remove their leg chains. He tries to teach Blu how to fly, before the three meet Pedro and Nico. Nigel hires a horde of thieving marmosets to capture Blu and Jewel. Pedro and Nico take Blu and Jewel to a bird's Rio-style party, where they perform a duet, but are attacked by the marmosets. Their bird friends fight them, then the five flee. Linda and Túlio are taken to the smugglers hideout. Marcel explains that he will use the Rio Carnival to capture Blu and Jewel.

Meanwhile, Blu and the others meet Luiz, who releases the chain holding Blu and Jewel using his drool; and the two macaws decide to go their separate ways. When Blu and Rafael learn from Pedro and Nico that Nigel captured Jewel, they rush to the carnival to rescue her, while Linda and Túlio organize a rescue attempt for the birds.

While Linda and Túlio pose as dancers in blue macaw costumes, Marcel uses Nigel to capture the birds. On board Marcel's Short SC.7 Skyvan, the macaws release the captive birds, but Nigel injures Jewel. Blu uses a fire extinguisher to send Nigel into the propeller of the plane's engine, and the smugglers flee. Unable to fly, Jewel slips out of the plane and falls towards the ocean. Blu jumps out of the plane to rescue her and he discovers that he is able to fly after Jewel kisses him. Later, Linda, Túlio, and Fernando heal Jewel and organize a sanctuary to protect the jungle from smugglers. Blu and Jewel raise three chicks together and celebrate with their bird friends, Nigel is ridiculed for his loss of feathers by the marmoset's leader Mauro, and the smugglers are sent to jail.

Cast

Animals

• Jesse Eisenberg as Blu, a male Spix's macaw and the main protagonist. He is socially awkward, domesticated, and clumsy. Blu was smuggled from Rio de Janeiro to Moose Lake and was adopted by Linda Gunderson as Tyler Blu Gunderson, living together for 15 years. However, he is unable to fly.
• Anne Hathaway as Jewel, as a female Spix's macaw and the deuteragonist who desperately longs to escape to the rainforest.
• George Lopez as Rafael, as a romantic Toco Toucan and the tritagonist who has a fondness of Carnaval.
• will.i.am as Pedro, a rapping Red-crested Cardinal and one of the secondary tritagonists who befriends Blu and gives him advice on how to attract girls.
• Jamie Foxx as Nico, a close friend of Pedro and one of the secondary tritagonists. He is a Yellow Canary with a green and purple striped bottlecap as a hat and tambourine that loves to samba.
• Tracy Morgan as Luiz, a bulldog who is Rafael's friend and a chainsaw expert who has a medical condition of drooling.
• Jemaine Clement as Nigel, an evil Sulphur-crested cockatoo and the main antagonist. Nigel was formerly a television star, but after being replaced by a parakeet he developed a hatred of exotic birds and began to help capture them for his owner Marcel.
• Bernardo de Paula as Kipo, a Roseate Spoonbill at the bird's funk party.
• Francisco Ramos as Mauro, the leader of the marmosets.
• Bebel Gilberto as Eva,  a Keel-billed Toucan and Rafael's wife. She is tone-deaf.

Humans

• Leslie Mann as Linda Gunderson, Blu's human owner and the secondary protagonist who discovered Blu after he was taken from Rio de Janeiro to Moose Lake and adopted him for 15 years.
  • Sofia Scarpa Saldanha, the director's daughter, voices the younger Linda.
• Jake T. Austin as Fernando, an impoverished and orphaned Brazilian boy. He assists Marcel in capturing exotic birds.
• Bernardo de Paula as Sylvio, an stocky security guard at Túlio's aviary. He is also a fan of the Carnaval festival and spends as much time as he can dancing the samba.
• Rodrigo Santoro as Túlio Monteiro, the secondary deuteragonist and an ornithologist from Brazil who suggests that Blu travel to Rio to mate with Jewel and Linda's love interest.
• Carlos Ponce as Marcel, the leader of the smugglers and Nigel's owner who gives him difficult tasks which none of his partners can achieve. He is the secondary antagonist.
• Jeffrey Garcia as Tipa, a clumsy one of Marcel's henchmen.
• Davi Vieira as Armando, one of Marcel's henchmen.

Trivia

• This is the first Blue Sky Studios film to be produced in a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio; all of that company's previous films were produced in 1.85:1.
• This is the first Blue Sky Studios's musical film.
• Rio is the first Blue Sky Studios film to be musical.
• The fifth Blue Sky Studios film to receive a PG rating (officially).
• A Promotion on South America for Rio was made, it was Rio Oreo.
• The film was a box office success, making over $470,000,000 worldwide.
• DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Disk Rio Trio Party Edition came out on August 2 in North America, July 7 in Brazil, and September 28 in Australia.
• Rio is the first film to pass the $4 million mark in 2011.
• Robin Thicke was considered for the project, but he was scrapped.
• The movie has several elements similiar to Happy Feet (ex. both feature singing and dancing birds, the movie ending with the main male and female protagonist offspring being seen, and some rude humor early on).
• The Rio video game for Wii, Nintendo DS, PS3, and Xbox 360, came out on April 12, 2011.
• A Puzzle game was released on December 10, 2011
• Rio is also the first Blue Sky Studios movie to feature modern humans, the people in the first Ice Age movie were Neanderthals.
• Rio is the second Blue Sky Studios film in which the main character begins at a young age (the first was Robots).
• Rio is the third and last Blue Sky Studios film to begin with the opening credits, after Robots and Horton Hears a Who!
• This is the first and so far only Blue Sky Studios film to have the love interest kiss the main character.
• Rio is the second movie by Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox to be turned into a franchise, after Ice Age, which currently has five movies and six short films.
• The idea for the film was conceived by the film's director, Carlos Saldahana, in 1995. It was originally going to be about a penguin being washed up on the shores of Brazil. But when Saldahana heard about "Happy Feet" and "Surf's Up",(two other films about penguins) he decided to change the plot to just what it is today, a macaw raised by a girl.
• Wanda Sykes, who played a goose in this film, later voiced Granny in Ice Age: Continental Drift, 1 year later.

Sequels

Main article: Rio 2

Sérgio Mendes commented in January 2012 his nomination for Best Original Song, saying, that the film will most likely have a sequel, and that Carlos Saldanha is planning it to be released in 2014 three to four months before the World Cup which will be held in Brazil.

The plot of the sequel will tie into the 2014 FIFA World Cup, but the exact storyline has yet to be revealed by the film's producers. Carlos Saldanha and Sérgio Mendes, along with others, met with each other a week after the film was announced, on February 1, 2012 to reveal the synopsis of the film to one another. Sérgio Mendes will once again being creating new music for the sequel to the film, due to his Oscar nomination for his music in the first film. Saldanha revealed that no deal for a script or deals have been made with studios about the film as of yet. The sequel will be distributed by 20th Century Fox and animated by Blue Sky Studios.

A spokesperson from 20th Century Fox has said that no deals with actors have been made yet., and that the studio is interested in turning Rio into a franchise, which hints at further sequels.

On November 28, 2012, Don Rhymer, the screenwriter of the first film, died after a battle with cancer.

Gallery

Theatrical release poster

External Links

• Rio at the Internet Movie Database
• Announcement
• Trailer at YouTube
• Sample Video Clip at YouTube
• Another Trailer at YouTube
• Rio Wiki