"Rio" Movie Trailer Review

"Rio"

Movie Trailer Review

By our guest blogger, Rob Stammitti

"Rio" is an interesting development. Apparently the dream project of Carlos Saldanha, director the "Ice Age" films, this charming looking animated film follows a macaw named Blu who goes on a journey to Rio de Jeneiro to meet with the only remaining female of his kind.

The trailer doesn't really point that out, though--like the "Ice Age" trailers it just shows a single moment from the film, in this case one where a toucan and presumably the female macaw attempt to teach Blu how to fly. When he leaps into the air, however, he simply plummets and starts crashing into passing hang gliders.

Despite so little being known about the film, its long development and relatively personal subject matter, along with the amusing trailer, make it seem pretty good.

The biggest clue as to its potential quality though is likely just the fact that the generally smaller-scale Blue Sky Studios is producing it. While Pixar and Dreamworks continue to display a near complete control of the market, Blue Sky always seems to pop up out of nowhere every so often and surprise audiences with generally solid work, if not necessarily astounding ones. And the fact that Saldanha has been wanting to make the film for so long likely means a lot of extra effort has gone into its production. Still, with a release date set for April 8, 2011, we've got a long time to wait to see how this one pans out.

The trailer for "Rio" is below. Thoughts?