Rio 2

Back by popular demand! Sorry, back by contractual demand, Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway reprise their roles as the blue macaws from 2011's Rio, a film that was enjoyable enough, but certainly doesn't warrant a sequel. Money talks though and so here we are. This time the macaws make their way into the Amazon to help out other members of their species, though it mainly comes across as an animated version of Meet The Parents. It's all pretty lazy with Carlos Saldanha's direction lurching from dull to head-spinning with no rhyme or reason and all the voice actors sounding like their just going through the motions (Eisenberg's whiny shtick really starts to grate in films like this). Kids will love it, but there's nothing here for adults unless you want to decipher exactly what the film is about. Numerous plots and messages run throughout, but it's a complete mess, highlighted by the producers dropping an eco-message of serious contradictions into the script in respect of logging. The denouement involves the birds and other animals of the rain forest protecting their precious land from loggers and developers. Why are these events occurring in the first place, though? Ah yes, because the human population is growing at an unsustainable rate and so more natural resources need to be destroyed to cope with the demand. In effect, the film's target audience is what's causing the destruction of our land. Nice one Blue Sky Studios. Overall this should have been a straight to DVD release, but if you've got kids you want to keep distracted for a couple of hours, then you won't really go wrong with this. Rating: 5/10.