‘Rio 2’ is an Annoying, Stupid, Boring, Cash Grab that Will Make You Hate the Characters You Used to Love

Oh my goodness, how I loved Rio. The music, the color, the characters. Rio was an explosion of joy and culture and even today, I still watch it when I get the chance to. Now, there is a sequel for some reason, and it’s time to revisit the characters that we grew to love…

…and can now grow to hate.

Rio 2 is about as necessary as an extra head. This is a bloated preachy story akin to Ferngully, only even more irritating if you can believe that.

Rio 2 finds new parents Blue and Jewel take off into the Amazon when their owners discover a lost flock of Blue Macaws living in the jungle. Once there, Jewel is reunited with the family that she thought she lost and might lose again thanks to a villain so corny I swear he escaped from an episode of Captain Planet.

I hated this movie. It took everything I loved about Rio and discarded it for an easy story about environmentalism and how important family is. Apparently, it’s also a story about how your wife can lie to you and mislead you to go somewhere she wants to be, but you have to go along with it because the only thing that matters is what she wants. What kind of messed up message is that? Happy wife, happy life? How about equal partners and quit playing the gender card, you foul fowl!

It’s odd… the characters I loved so much last time are incredible annoying here. Blue was sweetly naïve in the first movie, now he’s almost willfully incompetent. The red bird and yellow bird not only climb into the upper echelons of annoying, but invent new levels and almost redefine the concept. The bird children are generic that I honestly never was able to tell them apart once during this accursed movie, and Jewel has just become a selfish monster.

I hated this movie.

Gone is the culture, largely absent are the fun songs, dulled are the colors (though it might have been a technical issue with my showings), and thin is my patience.

Finally… it’s boring. Dull as a hammer. I can tolerate a lot of guff from a movie, but the second that it bores more for extended periods of time, my toleration turns into a boiling cauldron of hatred.

Rio 2 is the definition of an uneeded money grab. It’s simple, loud, and stupid – aiming right for that lowest common denominator that they believe kids rest on. Jokes on them, though… my kids were bored and so were all of the others unfortunate enough to sit in on this atrocity as well.