WORLD TOUR Day 57 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
BEFORE: The third and final of the animated films in my World Tour. This one reminds me that although I did visit six continents virtually, I could have visited all SEVEN, just by including "Happy Feet 2". But Antarctica is a huge non-defined place, and I doubt I could have pinpointed an exact location to measure mileage from.
The obvious (to me, anyway) link from "Kiss of the Spider Woman" is that William Hurt was also in "The Village" with Jesse Eisenberg (last seen in "30:Minutes or Less").
THE PLOT: When Blu, a domesticated macaw from small-town Minnesota, meets the fiercely independent Jewel, he takes off on an adventure to Rio de Janeiro with this bird of his dreams.
AFTER: This was made by the same studio that animated "Ice Age", and while it's nice to see them doing something different, and possibly creating a new story franchise, this one felt a little by-the-numbers to me. Having the main character be a bird that can't fly seems like the most obvious choice in making him different from the rest of the characters, and also a bit reminiscent of "Happy Feet", where only one penguin couldn't sing.
My usual complaint about animated films for kids is that there's usually too much slapstick, too much falling down and crashing into things, and that's also the case here. Plus they're able to show birds plummeting from the sky, and that almost happens too often too. (Shades of "How to Train Your Dragon" as well...)
But what saves the film is the scenery, the gorgeous city of Rio, and the majesty of Carnival. The music I could give or take, in fact there's a hint of racism in portraying all of the birds with Latino and African-American voices as "smooth operators" when it comes to romance, and the white voices (human and bird) are mostly clueless nerds. If I came from Minnesota I might take issue with this - people get it on there, too, you know. But I do come from the nerd community, and we're not sexless idiots. Well, not most of us, anyway.
Fortunately there are some fun bits here, as the birds need to work together to fight bird smugglers (an easy target, who would root for animal smugglers?) and get across town and back to their owners. I wonder if bird owners enjoy this film, because it treats "pet" like a dirty word, and falls just short of treating the ownership of tropical birds as cruelty - especially keeping a tropical bird in a place like Minnesota. Blu seems to enjoy his life there, but through his ineptitude, it's depicted as wrong for him.
I suppose it's good to have a message like this for the older kids - they can enjoy the birds falling down when they're younger, and then think about the deeper message when they become teens.
Also starring the voices of Anne Hathaway (last seen in "Nicholas Nickleby"), Leslie Mann (last heard in "ParaNorman"), Jemaine Clement (last heard in "Despicable Me"), George Lopez (last heard in "Marmaduke"), Jamie Foxx (last seen in "Due Date"), Tracy Morgan (last seen in "The Longest Yard"), will.I.am, with cameos from Wanda Sykes (last seen in "License to Wed"), Jane Lynch (last seen in "Paul").
DISTANCE TRAVELED TODAY: 223 miles / 359 km (Sao Paulo, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
DISTANCE TRAVELED SO FAR: 40,065 miles / 63,025 km
RATING: 6 out of 10 hang gliders
No comments:
Post a Comment