Colorful but unremarkable

Rating: 4/10 (13 February 2012)

So mediocre that it's almost an achievement. Almost.
Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age, Robots, Horton Hears a Who!) has some great animators, and their latest film, Rio , is nothing if not full of deliciously curvy character designs and a color palette that is at times sweetly saturated with deep hues, but it's clear that film's budget went primarily to wrangling a celebrity cast and writing some catchy songs. The animation noticeably cuts corners at times—character models are often under-animated and overused, and there's a stifling sense of formulaic rigidity to the whole thing.
It's unoffensive, though. Rio is the kind of animated film that easily entertains and placates kids for its running time. However, I must encourage parents to consider whether or not that's really such a good thing. In an age when animated films are popular and great films are produced with considerable regularity (Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Pixar films in general not to mention Disney's commitment to localizing Studio Ghibli films), why settle for mediocre?