Rio

Carlos Saldanha’s Rio is a good family diversion, with enough humour and visual pleasure to carry a familiar story. It wants to keep the birds moving, the music playing and the city spread out beneath them, and those are reasonable ambitions for an animated adventure. It is less interested in finding a fresh way through its plot. For a family evening that needs something cheerful rather than demanding, it does the job.

The strongest reason to choose it is the animation, particularly the birds and the aerial views of Rio de Janeiro. Renato Falcão’s cinematography uses light and depth to give those views a sense of space, so that the flying feels exciting rather than merely busy. The colours are bold without making the city difficult to read. Even when the story is doing something expected, there is usually something in the image worth attending to.

Jesse Eisenberg’s Blu and Anne Hathaway’s Jewel make agreeable company, but Jemaine Clement’s Nigel is the character we would keep. His villainy gives the sweetness a needed interruption, and his musical number allows the comedy to become properly unpleasant. We laughed at Nigel’s song because Clement makes the character’s nastiness sound so thoroughly enjoyable to him. There is a particular pleasure in hearing someone take such care over being objectionable when much of the surrounding film is trying hard to be liked.

The music credited to John Powell and Carlinhos Brown helps sustain the bustle, although the songs are uneven enough that not every interruption feels earned. Some numbers bring a welcome change of pace; others make us more aware of how much the film depends on staying lively. Harry Hitner’s editing keeps that liveliness from becoming exhausting. The pace is generally brisk, but it can also hurry us past moments that might have benefited from a little more time with the characters.

The screenplay, credited to Sam Harper, Don Rhymer, Joshua Sternin and Jennifer Ventimilia, is the weak point. Its familiar progress matters because an adventure needs some uncertainty, even when nobody expects it to become particularly frightening. Too often we can anticipate the kind of scene coming next, and the attractive animation has to supply the interest that the writing has not. The good humour helps, but it cannot make a predictable stretch feel inventive.

There is also something limiting about how prettily the city is presented. The favelas fit comfortably into the colourful surroundings, and the film gives us little reason to consider them as places beyond the view. A family comedy need not stop for a lesson, but this much tidiness makes the setting feel a little too carefully selected for visitors. Its approach is typical of the safer end of family animation, where even the scenery must avoid making anyone uncomfortable.

We would recommend it with modest expectations, particularly when the appeal is colourful birds, broad comedy and music. At 96 minutes, it does not make an unreasonable claim on the evening, and there is enough pleasure in the animation to forgive some thin writing. Choose it for the birds and Clement; do not expect the screenplay to keep pace with either.