Rio 2 is a 2014 American 3D computer-animated musical adventure-comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Carlos Saldanha. It is the sequel to the 2011 computer-animated film Rio and the studio's first film to have a sequel outside of their existing Ice Age franchise. The title refers to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where the first film was set and Rio 2 begins, though most of its plot occurs in the Amazon rainforest.
Featuring the returning voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jemaine Clement, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, and Jake T. Austin, the film was released internationally on March 20, 2014, and on April 11, 2014, in American theaters. Rio 2 was Don Rhymer's final film after he died on November 28, 2012. The film received mixed reviews, but was a box office success, earning over $493 million.
Blu and Jewel enjoy life in Rio with their 3 kids, the oldest and music-loving Carla, book smart Bia, and the youngest and mischievous Tiago. Meanwhile, Blu's former owner, Linda Gunderson and her ornithologist husband, Tulio are on an expedition in the Amazon and eventually discover a quick-flying spix's macaw that loses one of its feathers. When word gets out about this through television, Jewel believes that they should go to the Amazon to help find the blue macaws. While the kids are ecstatic, Blu is uncertain, but is pressured into going along. Rafael, Nico and Pedro decide to come along. Luiz attempts to follow, but fails. Blu brings a fanny pack full of supplies, one of which he uses mostly is a GPS, much to Jewel's displeasure.
Meanwhile, the leader of a group that is in a line of illegal logging named Big Boss, discovers Linda and Tulio's expedition to find the macaws and orders his henchmen to hunt them down to avoid disruptions to their work. Also, Blu and Jewel's old enemy, Nigel the cockatoo, has survived the plane crash from the first film, but is now unable to fly and is working as a fortune teller/con artist. When he sees Blu and his family flying overhead of him, he immediately decides to seek revenge on them. He enlists two minions to help him in his plans; a silent anteater named Charlie and a poison dart frog named Gabi, the latter of which is in love with Nigel. Blu and his family use a boat to get toward the jungle (with Nigel's first plan of revenge being inadvertently foiled by Charlie), and when they arrive, they find nothing in sight. However, they are eventually taken to a flock of blue macaws that are hiding in a secret paradise land. There, they meet Jewel's stern long lost father, Eduardo, his older sister Mimi, and Jewel's childhood friend, Roberto. Eduardo seems unimpressed with Blu's domesticated behavior.
The film starts off as usual for an animated movie these days -- the businessman is the bad guy. In this case, it is a logger who refers to the Blue's humans as "tree huggers." The good guys are trying to find evidence of an endangered species in the rain forest so that they can shut down logging operations. It seems fairly typical child environmental propaganda at first. Then it turns dark. It starts by desensitizing the kids to violence by showing some animals eaten by other animals during a song and dance sequence. The movie climaxes with a violent attack on the logging operation at the end of which the bad businessman is actually killed. I am not kidding. This movie seems to advocate violent environmental activism. It makes the movie much less entertaining -- for adults and kids.
