Free movie review on children and media rio 2

The animated film Rio 2 that appeared on screens in spring 2014 is a sequel to the infamous and highly successful Rio introduced to the wide public in 2011. The movie’s target audience is the children, although the ratings and reviews showed that the story was greatly appreciated by other age groups, as well. The main characters of the movies stayed the same, while the new plot was supported by the new protagonists and antagonists. The mood of the movie is just as kind and spiritual as the one of the first film. The creators of the movie shared a number of very important educational and informative messages with the children. The chief messages reveal the importance of the family, close family relationship and the ability to feel confident and be yourself when at home, the value of friendship, of the preservation of the natural habitats; the movie also teaches the children of the colorful nature of the Amazon region and its habitants, as well as introduces a child to the Rio carnival and Brazilian culture, which is very close to the director of the movie, a Brazilian-born Carlos Saldanha, who has also directed such masterpiece as an Ice Age. While the movie contains many positive role-model characters and beautiful messages, there are also negative elements found by some critics. One of them is that the movie contains too many side-stories that take the child’s attention away from the main messages. Other supposed drawbacks are the repeating depiction of the clumsy Blu, whom the audience met in the first movie; the supposedly racist depiction of the family’s friends Rafael, Nico and Pedro; the stereotypical presentation of the teenage kids and their mother Jewel.
The first issue to be discussed will be the portrayal of different genders, their roles and stereotypes aimed at different age groups. Physically, it is easy to recognize male and female characters of the movie, not only by the voice, but also by the appearance. Female characters of different ages have the same almond-shaped eyes, smaller beaks, smooth feathers and more plummy overall body constitution. At the same time, the male characters are depicted as larger, thinner, with bigger beaks and rounder eyes, scraggy feather. The gender roles and behavior of the characters overall correspond to the standard roles portrayed in most of the movies for children. The female teenager Carla shows disobedience being too cool for the activities suggested by the parents; the male kids are shown as very active and interested in the surrounding world. At the same time the adult female characters do not fall under the standard portrayal of women in the TV-shows. They are rather shown as strong, independent, slightly wild and much smarter than the male characters. The male characters, at the same time, differ in the way they are presented. While Blu is a comfort-loving man, who does not know the basics of survival in the wild nature, Eduardo, Jewel’s father is shown as strong, focused and serious man, a leader; Tulio, Linda’s husband, conveys the features of a very clumsy, self-assured and slightly helpless man, when it comes to the dangerous situations. Thus, it is clear that the gender roles are not very realistic and do not show the true variety of characters that females and males can possess. But, as they are created specifically to serve as the role models for the children, it means that girls are being encouraged to become strong, independent and smart when growing up. At the same time it is not very clear, why the male characters are shown in contrast to each other, as opposed to the female characters. Whatever the reason for such plot is, the goal is clearly to show how different and at the same time lovable a man can be regardless of his strength and wit. While moving away from the common stereotypes of the gender roles, the moviemakers supported a common stereotype of the disobedient teenagers, but made their behavior admirable, though a bit unrealistic. For example, the children of Blu and Jewel do not listen to the parents, a typical stereotype, which is close to reality most of the time. However, Carla is usually shown listening to the music, and the boys are physically active playing games and being mischievous. However, most of the nowadays kids are spending a lot of time in the electronic devices, which is why playing outdoors and communicating with the family is not very common to the kids. Thus, the behavior of the teenagers is rather presented as a role-model for the growing generation.
Moving on to the characters of color, some critics argued that most of the characters were created with biased vision. The characters of the three friends Rafael, Nico and Pedro were voiced by the actors of color, and it is clear for the adult audience. The distinction between different ethnic groups met in the movie actually adds something fresh and funny to the movie, while showing a common reality. Children usually do not understand the racism-issues, and the number of adults, who have watched the movie, is very big, as well. It may mean that although special characters of color were created by the moviemakers to make it more colorful and diverse, the ethnicity- and race-related issues probably exist in the minds of the critics of Rafael, Nico, Pedro and other characters voiced by the non-while actors. The world that surrounds the children is very diverse, and children meet the representatives of different ethnicities every day without making any negative distinction between them.
While some can argue about the questions of genders and ethnicities, the characters are animals, and it is what makes the movie so appealing to all age groups. The thing is that most of the people love animals, and by attributing human characteristics to them, the producers are able to convey important educating and informative messages to the young audience by catching their attention with colorful pictures and beautiful and funny animals. It is much easier for the kids to soak in the positive role-models by liking the soft, funny and clumsy animals without making a direct association. At the same time the admiration of the non-animated human characters might lead to unrealistic expectations, creation of the unattainable ideals and wrong self-image. While it would be hard to dismiss the human character, the parents can simply say, “ It’s just a bird!” to the kid, who got too into the character.
All in all, I really liked the second movie. It was very bright and funny, so I was able to sit back and relax in front of another kind story. However, I need to confess that I liked the first Rio better, as it seemed fresh and new, the plot was interesting, and the characters were never seen before. It was more captivating and educational, but at the same time, if looking at the bright side, there is always something important and interesting that we can learn from the kids movies, and by watching it, I was able to mentally return to the childhood, but at the same time to go back to my current age and analyze the movie from the adult’s perspective.