The Adventures of a Blue Macaw in My Wonderful City

Rating: 9/10 (9 July 2011)

In Rio de Janeiro, the macaw baby Blu is captured by dealers and smuggled to the United States of America. While driving through Moose Lake, Minnesotta, the truck that is transporting Blu has a minor accident that drops the box where he is trapped on the road. The girl Linda finds the bird and raises him with love.
Fifteen years later, Blu is a domesticated and intelligent bird that does not fly and lives a comfortable life with the bookshop owner Linda. Out of the blue, the clumsy Brazilian ornithologist Tulio visits Linda and explains that Blu is the last male of his species alive and he has a female called Jewel in Rio de Janeiro. He invites Linda to travel with Blu to Rio de Janeiro to mate with Jewel and save their species.
Linda travels with Blu and Tulio to Rio de Janeiro and they leave Blue and Jewel in a large cage in the institute where Tulio works. While they are having dinner, smugglers break in the institute and steal Blue and Jewel to sell them for foreigners. Linda and Tulio look everywhere for Blu that is chained to Jewel and hidden in a slum. Meanwhile, Jewel and Blu escape from their captors and befriend a group of birds that help them to get rid off the chain. It is Carnival and the smugglers and the mean cockatoo Nigel do not intend to give up of Blu and Jewel and are chasing the birds through the crowded streets.
"Rio" is a delightful animation with the adventures of a blue macaw in my Wonderful City. The successful director Carlos Saldanha was born in Rio de Janeiro and he knows the beauties of our city to show to natives, to Brazilians and to foreigners. The CGI is also awesome, with magnificent colored birds and the landscapes are impressively realistic and disclose minor details of our daily life that a real "carioca" will certainly note.
The story is engaging, and the blue macaws Blu, who is smart but can not fly, and Jewel, who is impulsive and does not think before acting, are responsible for some of the funniest moments. My vote is nine.
Title (Brazil): "Rio"