Rio 2

image for Rio 2

Short takes

Not recommended under 5, parental guidance recommended 5- 8 (Violence; Scary scenes; confusing plot)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Rio 2
  • a review of Rio 2 completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 26 June 2014.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Not recommended due to violence, scary scenes and a confusing plot
Children 5 to 8 Parental guidance recommended due to violence, scary scenes and a confusing plot
Children aged 8 and over OK for this age group

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Rio 2
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: None
Length: 101 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

In this sequel to Rio, the blue macaws Blu (voice of Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) have 3 children: Tiago (Pierce Gagnon), Carla (Rachel Crow) and Bia (Amandla Stenberg) who are all enjoying growing up in Rio. One night Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) and Linda (Leslie Mann), the humans who rescued Blu, appear on television from the jungles of the Amazon to announce that they believe they’ve found more Blue Spix Macaws in the wild. Jewel is very excited to hear this and after much persuasion, Blu agrees to take his family on holiday to the Amazon.

On arriving in the jungle the birds are met by a hostile Eduardo (Andy Garcia) who turns out to be Jewel’s long lost father. The family are immediately taken into the wild bird family but Blu finds he doesn’t fit in. There is also competition from an old boyfriend of Jewel’s, Roberto (Bruno Mars). In addition Blu is being followed and hunted by a nasty cockatoo called Nigel (Jemaine Clement) and his sidekick, a poisonous frog called Gabi (Kristin Chenoweth) who is an enemy from way back. Apparently Blu accidentally caused Nigel to be hospitalised, which resulted in him being unable to fly and he is now seeking revenge. Tulio and Linda have their own problems as well because their plans to declare the area a conservation zone are being thwarted by evil loggers who are destroying the forest.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Conservation

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is quite a bit of slapstick violence, more serious violence and accidental harm in this movie including:

  • The young birds try to set their babysitter on fire with a firework rocket. Blu comes home in time and in the process of trying to save Tiny he sets himself on fire and goes up with the rocket.
  • Linda is admiring a beautiful butterfly on the Amazon River when a huge fish jumps out of the water and eats it.
  • Nigel is poked by his trainer with a stick to make him perform and Nigel gets angry and starts to hit out at the trainer. The trainer then goes to hit him with the stick but Nigel grabs it and hits him back.
  • Nigel sings “I Will Survive” kicking animals out of his way.
  • Eduardo ties Blu up in a trap to see if he can escape.
  • The Blue Macaws go ‘to war’ with the Red Macaws which is a ball game where they use Brazil nuts for a ball. There is quite a lot of crashing and banging into each other.
  • Nigel falls down some stairs and a sailor bashes him with a bat.
  • The ‘Big Boss’ (Miguel Ferrer) of the logging operation threatens Tulio and Linda with an axe and throws it at a board.
  • Linda throws a snake at the loggers.
  • The loggers capture Linda and Tulio and tie them to a tree.
  • The birds all attack the loggers, pelting them with Brazil nuts.
  • The Big Boss is about to blow up the trees with dynamite but Blu takes the dynamite away. Nigel joins him and the dynamite explodes leaving them both appearing dead.
  • Gabi aims a poison dart at Blu but it hits Nigel. She thinks he’s dead so tries to kill herself with her own poison.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Nigel thinks he’s a very good actor and he gives a Shakespearean performance of ‘To be or not to be?’ holding the skull of a goat.
  • Nigel has a dream in which the faces all become blurred and distorted.
  • Nigel is an evil character with a nasty laugh and is particularly scary in one scene when he is shown standing in front of a full moon looking very evil.
  • A bird tells Blu that the Amazon is full of snakes that swallow you whole, and flesh eating Piranhas.
  • The ‘Big Boss’ of the logging operation is a large, evil looking man and a nasty character. Most of the loggers also look tough and ugly.
  • Tiago dangles a large hairy spider on Blu.
  • Some dancing beavers get eaten by something and appear as skeletons.
  • A large scary wolf comes out of the jungle and eats a turtle.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Gabi tells Nigel that ‘there isn’t a bird she wouldn’t kill for him’.
  • a snake crawls over Linda while she is hiding in a tree
  • Eduardo gets trapped under two tractors but Tulio saves him from being crushed just in time.
  • In one scene, Blu and Nigel both look as if they’re dead.
  • A snake is seen with a swollen belly, implying that it’s eaten Big Boss.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this film.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Nothing of concern

Product placement

None of concern in the film, but plenty of associated merchandise

Sexual references

Nothing of concern

Nudity and sexual activity

Nothing of concern

Use of substances

Social drinking by adults

Coarse language

There is some coarse language that children may imitate in this movie, including  “pooh”, “poop” and some name calling such as “freak”, “ idiot’ and “filthy fowl”.

In a nutshell

Rio 2 is an animated adventure story that is very colourful and has some funny moments, although many characters are very stereotypical. There are several threads running through the story which may make it confusing for younger children. There is also a lot of violence, much of it slapstick, and a number of scary scenes, so parental guidance is recommended for under eights and children under five may not enjoy the film.

The main messages from this movie are:

  • the forest should be preserved for the wildlife
  • not to judge others just because they are a bit different
  • the importance of family

Parents may also wish to discuss:

  • The portrayal of the loggers. Are all loggers evil or are they just people doing their job?
  • Is it really funny to see people or animals being hurt?