Rio

A couple of years ago I read an article where a reporter had been to a Disney meeting and got to hear about their animation slate. One film from Pixar was 'Newt' about a lizard or iguana (can't remember which) got put in an enclosure with another lizard so they would mate. Sadly Blue Sky beat them to the punch with this film.

The reviews for this film have been really positive. But I am not sure why. I found the film to be very ordinary. The plot is one that we have seen a lot and while that may not normally be a problem it does not have any interesting twists or characters to make it fun. The whole 'I'm a bird who can't fly' stories is one of those plots that we know exactly where it is going right from the beginning. Once you add in all the other aspects like smugglers and crazy bird it does not leave many surprises. The characters are also very typical of this type of story. The animation is of a good quality and looks very bright and vibrant but there were no scenes that amazed me.

Despite the lack of interesting characters the voice cast do a good job. Jesse Eisenberg does a good job of bringing his normally nerdy qualities to the voice of his character. Anne Hathaway is also very good and does not have a voice that dominates her character. The rest of the cast are not all that great. I think I'm getting a bit sick of George Lopez and him playing the same character every time he is on film. I did however like Leslie Mann. She was able to bring a wonderful sweetness to her role.

With lots of animation out in the world the expectations for quality have been placed very high. Just a run of the mill animated family film with no real greatness to speak of.