Rio 2 Movie Review

Rio 2

                                    

Rio 2 is an animated adventure comedy movie released in 2014. As the name suggests, it is the sequel of the popular animated movie Rio. This movie is written by Don Rhymer, Carlos Kotkin, Jenny Bicks, Yoni Brenner and Carlos Saldanha and directed by Carlos Saldanha. The voices of the major characters of the movie Rio 2 are given by Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Bruno Mars, Jemaine Clement, George Lopez, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, Andy García and Kristin Chenoweth.

In Rio 2, Blu and Jewel heads for the Amazon to find more birds of their own species. At the same time, Linda and Tulio's lives fall in danger when they try to save those birds from illegal loggers. 

A scene from the movie Rio 2

Plot:

At the beginning of the movie Rio 2, we see Blu and Jewel are living a happy life in Rio de Janeiro with their three children and the friends. Jewel doesn't like the human culture in Blu and the children, but somehow they are getting along.

On an expedition of Tulio and Linda in Amazon rainforest, they find the existence of more birds of Blu's species, which they previously believed, has become extinct. They announce this news on T.V. and decides to continue their journey to find the home of these birds. This announcement instantly make them enemy of an illegal logger group's boss.

The announcement also makes Jewel excited and she pressures Blu to go to Amazon to find their real place on earth. So, Blu's family leaves their home to Amazon to find those birds. Blu takes his travel kits with him, which includes a GPS and other necessary human things. Two of Blu's friends also joins the family in their journey.

Nigel, a villain from the prequel, sees Blu leaving and follows him silently to take his revenge on Blu for the accident which makes him unable to fly anymore. An anteater and a poisonous frog joins him. The poisonous frog is in love with Nigel. Their first attempt to kill Blu fails and finally, Blu's family and Nigel's group reach the Amazon rainforest.

After some searching, Blu and his family finds the home of those birds. There Jewel finds her long lost family. Now Jewel has her father, sister and her childhood friends. Everyone adjusts there very well, everyone except Blu. Jewel's family is against everything related to humans but Blu is very much used to living in the human way.So Blu finds a very hard time adjusting there. Jewel tries to support him and tells him that they are never going to leave this place.

Since childhood, Blu is living with the humans, so he doesn't know how to survive in the jungle. One of his mistakes causes them a fight with their enemy bird group. For Blu's another mistake, those enemy birds win, for which, Jewel's family loses the hold of food of that area. This makes everyone (including Jewel) very disappointed on Ble and Blu becomes deeply depressed.

With his GPS, Blu finds Linda and Tulio, who have already got attacked by the loggers and the logger's have left them to die. Blu learns about the logger's plan to destroy that part of the forest, which also includes Jewel's family's home.

Blu warns the other birds about it. He tries to convince all the birds to fight for their land. By growing up with humans, he know the human techniques and machines and he is confident that he can stop the loggers with the help of the other birds. At the same time, Nigel and his friends plans to launch their final attack to kill Blu.

Can Blu save their home? Do the other birds trust him after all these? Can he get away from Nigel's attack? Lets watch Rio 2 to know the answers.

My review about the movie Rio 2:

First of all, I didn't like Rio 2 much.

The plot of Rio 2 was simple and very predictable. The plot will not give you any thrill at all. Sometimes, it seemed like too many things got congested in a single movie. To me, it didn't disappoint much, because I was not a big fan of its prequel, Rio. Rio 2 may seem enjoyable to children, but should not amuse the elders. We have seen several animated films like the Ice Age series, which seemed enjoyable to elders too.

Rio 2 has a good number of songs in it. Sometimes those felt as a good touch, sometimes not. But this movie badly lacked some humor elements. More humors could make it more pleasant. The animation and the use of colors was brilliant in this movie, and that's the only thing I liked about it. The direction seemed good in Rio 2, but the screenplay seemed weak.

The dialogues of all the characters were okay but nothing extraordinary. They could be prefect if they contained more humor. The character of Blu didn't seem strong enough. The characters of the villain Nigel also didn't seem strong.

So, finally, I didn't enjoy watching Rio 2 much. This movie lacked the trill from its sequel and it seemed as just a very predictable plot is moving forward. Children should love to see all those beautiful birds and other things, but it may not seem enjoyable to the grown ups. This one may seem inferior comparing with its prequel. So, I will not recommend watching Rio 2 to movie fans, even to the animation fans.

But that's just me. How did you like Rio 2? Share with us in the comments.

To know more about it:

IMDB Link: Rio 2 IMDB

Wikipedia Link: Rio 2 Wiki

To but or rent this movie from amazon, or to watch online, you will find the best deal on it here:Rio 2 Movie

300: Rise of an Empire Movie Review

300: Rise of an Empire

                                                  

300: Rise of an Empire is an action drama fantasy movie released in March, 2014. As anyone can guess, this is the sequel of the epic film ‘300’. It is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel Xerxes. 300: Rise of an Empire is written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Frank Miller and directed by Noam Murro. The major characters of this film are played by Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Hans Matheson, David Wenham, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro, Jack O'Connell and Andrew Tiernan.

300: Rise of an Empire tells the story which happened before, during and after the story of its prequel 300 and the Greeks' attempts to stop the Persians from taking their homeland. 

 

Eva Green and Sullivan Stapleton in a scene of 300: Rise of an Empire

Plot:

The plot of 300: Rise of an Empire starts 10 years before the battle happened in 300. The Persians came to conquer Greece, but they got defeated by the superior tactics of Greek general Themistocles. In that battle, Themistocles kills the Persian king, who was the father of the next king, Xerxes. Xerxes comes back to his land and with the help of his father’s naval commander, Artemisia, gains his power and emerged as the ‘God King’. Artemisia was a cruel but extraordinary intelligent warrior and general of the navy, who had a shady past and was seeking her revenge on the Greeks.

10 years later, Xerxes is now again invading Greece. Themistocles manages to convince all the states of Greece to provide him ships, with which, he will stop the Persian army at the sea. He then goes to seek help from Sparta, where he learns that the Spartan king Leonidas is consulting the oracles. He comes back to his town. With the help of his friend who also works as a spy and infiltrates the Persian troops, Themistocles learns the nature of Artemisia.

Themistocles, with his troops and ships, comes face to face with Artemisia’s troops in the sea. For the first two attacks, Themistocles successfully stops the Persians from advancing and with his brilliant tactics, make the Persians retreat. The Persian army loses a good number of soldiers, where Themistocles loses only a few men.

Impressed with Themistocles’s intelligence, Artemisia invites him to her ship. She uses sex to convince him to join her team as her second-in-command. Themistocles refuses and he is sent back to the land without any harm. But he knows that Artemisia has become mad and next day they are going to face a very tough battle.

He was not wrong. On the next day, Artemisia uses her brute force and maximum of her powers to destroy the Greek ships. Both side faces heavy losses and believing that Themistocles has died, Artemisia retreats with her troops, where Themistocles is luckily saved.

On the land, Xerxes has already killed king Leonidas and has started to destroy Greek cities. Themistocles visits mourning queen Gorgo (king Leonidas’s wife) of Sparta and again asks for her assistance, where she again refuses. Before leaving, Themistocles hands her king Leonidas’s sword and asks her to avenge him.

Meanwhile, Artemisia learns that Themistocles is still alive and is again preparing for a battle. She starts for that battle without her king Xerxes’s consent. They have a little argument between them.

Themistocles’s soldiers are depressed by their loss and the refusal of their call of assistance by the Spartans. But as a perfect leader, Themistocles inspires them to fight and take their revenge. He also makes some special arrangement for himself in his ship to use on the battle. So, with his troops, he comes face to face again with Artemisia.

Sullivan Stapleton in 300: Rise of an Empire 

My review about the movie 300: Rise of an Empire:

I liked this movie, but not as much as its prequel, 300. If you are a big fan of 300, this one may even disappoint you.

The plot of 300: Rise of an Empire was good. But if you are interested to learn about what happened after 300 ends, here is the first disappointment. This one also ends without giving an exact result of the war between the Persians and the Greeks. Just like its prequel, 300: Rise of an Empire ends within the war without telling us the fate about the Greeks.

The cinematography of 300: Rise of an Empire was also good, but not as good as 300. The use of fantasy was also less, we didn’t see much of the gigantic creatures or magic.

The acting of all the characters were good. Specially, Eva Green’s performance was outstanding. Her character was also so powerful and important that several times, it felt like she was the leading character of 300: Rise of an Empire. But none other characters were as charming as the characters of 300. Almost none of the charms of the character of king Leonidas were here at the character of the hero Themistocles. His character was also not as strong as that of king Leonidas of 300. Even king Xerxes’s and queen Gorgo’s character in 300: Rise of an Empire did not seem as powerful as we saw in the prequel.

But what I missed most in 300: Rise of an Empire was the epic dialogues from 300. Although the dialogues were good, but they were nowhere near the epicness of the dialogues of 300. I really missed something like “Tonight we dine in hell”, “Madness? This is Sparta!”, “Give them nothing, but take from them everything”.

The use of special effects also seemed inferior in 300: Rise of an Empire than its sequel. Most of the special effects were limited to showing bloods in slow motion.

There are a few nude scenes in 300: Rise of an Empire. For those and other gore scenes, this is not a movie you can watch with kids.

I think if the director thought that the success of the movie 300 came only for its plot, acting and cinematography, but not for its characters and dialogues, then he has made a mistake. I loved the whole movie 300 for its art and everything from the beginning to the end seemed very artistic to me including the fighting, the gore scenes, the nude scenes and so on. But the sequel 300: Rise of an Empire lacked severely in the art.

But don't get me wrong, 300: Rise of an Empire is still a good movie, but it falls behind if you compare it with its prequel. If you are fan of 300, then you must watch 300: Rise of an Empire. Even if you feel a little disappointed, but you will not feel you time wasted by watching it.

Don't forget to visit the wikipedia link of 300: Rise of an Empire. You will find a lot of interesting historical facts about those wars by browsing the links given in the article.

So, how was your experience about 300: Rise of an Empire? Share with us in the comments.

To know more about 300: Rise of an Empire:

Wikipedia link : 300: Rise of an Empire Wiki
IMDB link :300: Rise of an Empire IMDB

To buy or rent this movie from Amazon, or to watch online, get the best deal on it here:  300: Rise of an Empire Movie

After Earth Movie Review

After Earth
                                              

After Earth is a science fiction adventure action thriller movie released in 2013. This movie is written by Will Smith, Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The two main characters of After Earth are played by Will Smith and his son, Jaden Smith. The other artists of this movie are Sophie Okonedo, Zoë Kravitz, Sacha Dhawan and Chris Geere. This release date of this movie is close to Tom Cruise's Oblivion.

After earth tells the story of the future world, where a space ship crash lands on planet earth, living only two survivors. One survivor, the captain of the ship is severely injured, so its all up to the other one, his young son, to find a beacon in the hostile environment and send signal for help.

Will Smith and Jaden Smith in After Earth

Plot:

After Earth tells the story of future, when humans have abandoned the earth and have moved to another planet. But they are not alone on that planet. There are some aliens, who start to haunt and kill human. Technically, those aliens can’t see. But they can sense human’s fear, so they hunt by this. Humans are always on a fight with theses aliens. The Ranger Corps are leading the fight, and General Cypher Raige a renowned soldier of them. He is fearless about these aliens, so to them, he is invisible. This technique is called ghosting
.

Cypher has a young son named Kitai who is getting training to get in The Ranger Corps. In one examination, although he has very good result in theoretical part, he fails for his bad performance in the field.  That was the day when Cypher is returning from one of his journeys.

Kitai was feeling down, so his mother suggests Cypher to take him to journey with him. Cypher agrees and then he takes Kitai with him on his last mission before retirement. Their spaceship has several crews and soldiers and an alien which will be used for training. Suddenly their ship faces some asteroid shower. Cypher’s wisdom and experience saves the ship for the first time, but the environment damages the ship heavily.

They have no other option than to crash land on planet earth. The landing breaks the ship in two parts. All the crews, except Cypher and Kitai are dead. Cypher is badly injured and the beacon of the ship is broken. To send message for help, they need to find another beacon, which is at the tail part of the ship. But the accident has thrown the tail of the ship to far away from the head part, where Cypher and Kitai is currently located.

So, now its all up to Kitai to go and find the other beacon on the tail of the broken ship in this hostile environment. Cypher instructs him well about surviving in there. The planet becomes very cold during the night, so before night, Kitai must find the hotspots. Kitai also has communication system and different life support materials with him. The alien is free on the planet, which is another tension for Cypher.

Kitai starts his journey. He keeps constant communication with Cypher. Using the communication systems, from the ship, Cypher can see all around Kitai and he also has a map to guide Kitai. At first, Kitai gets scared and does something against the instructions of Cypher. He falls in danger for that but survives. Then he keeps on following Cypher’s instructions.

At one point, when Kitai was running out of his oxygen supplies, Cypher orders him to abort his mission and to come back to the ship. Kitai then reminds Cypher about their past family occurrences and finally jumps of a cliff to take a shortcut to his mission. He is saved, but at one point, his communication device breaks. From the ship, Cypher can only see Kitai, but can’t send in instructions.

So, now Kitai, a young boy, is all alone is a deadly environment. He does not have any further instruction or navigation. While his oxygen supply is running low, he must rely on his instincts to survive in this hostile environment and save his and his father’s life.

My review about the movie After Earth:

I found After Earth as a very average science fiction movie.

The plot is good, but its very predictable. There was not much surprise in the whole movie. Although the plot of After Earth is perfect for a science fiction movie, but the parts where Kitai was following the exactly what Cypher was saying to himself seemed too dramatic to be real. The family history and Kitai’s imaginations were good small touches.

The biggest problem of After Earth was its casting. The whole movie is centered on Jaden Smith. But his acting and maturity didn’t seem enough to carry him on this big task. He was not a good fit for the leading character of such a movie . I was missing typical Will Smith charm at the beginning of After Earth but it came on as the movie proceeded.  The acting of the other characters are good. The make ups and the dialogues were good too.

The special effects of After Earth were pretty decent and the alien looked scary. But I watched Oblivion just few days ago, so during the whole movie, the comparison between After Earth and Oblivion came in my mind. And I felt sorry that considering the set design, special effects and cinematography, After Earth is nothing compared to Oblivion. If you have watched Oblivion recently, I guess, you will also feel the difference, although both of them are different types of movies. This can be a common case, because both of the science fictions have been released in nearby time. You may miss the beautiful cinematography of Oblivion in After Earth.  

There is nothing is the movie After Earth, which may restrict a kid to see it.

So, the biggest flaw of this movie is the role of Jaden Smith. We have seen his beautiful acting in the movie Pursuit Of Happiness, when he was much smaller. I believe he will grow up as a great actor, considering who his father is, but in After Earth, it seemed like he is not ready yet.  It also felt like, the role given to him in this movie is too much for him at this age. The director could make the role of Will Smith stronger or could give him more screen time outside the spaceship to make this movie better.

Another thing is, as a movie of Will Smith, I felt a little disappointed by After Earth. Will Smith is one of my all-time favorite actors, and like other millions of his fans, I expect only beautiful movies from him. After all those beautiful movies, he has given us two consecutive just ‘good’ movies in recent times, Men in Black 3 and then After Earth. We all want to see those beautiful movies of him again.

So, overall, After Earth seemed just as a regular science fiction movie, nothing special. The presence of Will Smith in this movie is very limited and the main character seemed weak in acting. The score even goes lower, if you compare it with Tom Cruise’s Oblivion, which is also released in recent times. You can also see, After Earth holds a little lower than average IMDB rating of 4.9 while I’m writing this review. Finally, I’ll recommend watching After Earth to all movie lovers, although I’m, not sure how much it will be loved.

How did you feel about After Earth? Share with others in comments.

To know more:

IMDB Link: After Earth Movie IMDB

Wikipedia Link: After Earth Wiki

My review of the movie Oblivion: Oblivion Movie Review

To buy or rent this movie from Amazon, or to watch online, you can find the best deal on it here: After Earth Movie