He was! I thought it was a different cockatoo, even after the ‘audience hint’ where he hissed at Blu. His ‘puppy dog’ expression was so convincing, he had me fooled until the moment the security guard entered the lab and saw Nigel on the floor, then I had a gut feeling that maybe this was Nigel after all and not a similar cockatoo.
An aspect I really liked was Marcel (the ringleader guy with the shades and goatee) treating Nigel with the same respect and love that Linda does with Blu or Tulio with Jewel. Granted, we wouldn’t know whether Marcel would treat Nigel differently had the cockatoo not been such a competent and efficient ‘henchbird’, but it shows a ‘human side’ to the villain and that he didn’t join the business because he ‘hates animals’ or was ‘born evil’ or anything. And of course, they showed his pragmatic financial motivations when they showed his lowly base of operations, and his line, “These birds will make us a fortune”, instead of having him as a rich guy in a suit and say “I am evil, I hate animals and I want to kidnap and sell them on the black market for fun.”
And of course, Fernando was one of the strongest characters in the movie because he was compelled to commit the crime of poaching because of his desperation for survival. And his character being redeemed at the end by helping to save Blu and Jewel and finally finding the family he wanted.
Interesting that you are a reporter for that site! I’m also a contributor to my university magazine and I just fired off a (considerably more optimistic) spec review for this film to my editor this morning. 
I don’t quite agree with you on the movie being filled with cliches. You can’t have an animated movie set in Brazil without featuring the bright and cheerful Carnival. Now if you want to set a crime thriller like City of God or Tropa Elite, then by all means, nix the Carnival and drop a couple of armed bandits or drug runners with assault rifles into the favela sequences.
But obviously, since this is a family-friendly movie, they have to include more optimistic and ‘kid-safe’ action sequences like the market fight, and the Carnival celebrations. I agree with you that it was a very brave decision to feature the favelas (of course, without the armed bandits or drug runners) and Fernando’s midnight stroll on the roofs of the shacks has to be the most poignant scene in the entire film.
I had a gut feeling they would feature [spoil]‘Girl From Ipanema’[/spoil], so it came as a pleasant wish-fulfillment rather than an ‘Oh no, what a cliche’ moment for me.
With regards to birds doing human things… it’s more of a suspension of disbelief. I have to admit that Blu [spoil]writing in English and drawing blueprints kinda tested my S.o.D. but other scenes like the geese throwing snowballs, or that elaborate nightclub sequence were pretty believable within the ‘rules’ of the film.[/spoil] Some of the animation were pretty interesting, I keep watching the ‘Works Everytime’ clip and I can’t help but be impressed with how Jewel’s wing feathers were animated to resemble human digits at 0:25. That kind of stuff is very imaginative and I admire that. But I agree that that the opening scenes where [spoil]Blu drinks hot chocolate (which you should NEVER feed a macaw by the way) and writes detailed plans on a notebook[/spoil] were pretty S.o.D. shattering.
I’m kinda disappointed that you weren’t impressed by John Powell’s score, or the music soundtrack, but you are entitled to that opinion. I personally enjoyed it, but I can see what you mean by Pedro, Nico and Luiz serving very little function in the film. In fact, I would’ve preferred if they had left out the marmosets altogether so we can have more ‘character development’ scenes between the bird and [spoil]human couples[/spoil]. I mentioned in my last post it would’ve been nice if Blu had stood up for Linda and explain to Jewel that she saved his life as a chick, and that not all humans are bad. Unfortunately, his defense got smothered under Jewel’s taunting of him as a ‘pet’ and all that when they were in the aviary.
Look, a lot of the criticisms I’ve read leveled at Rio are that it has a ‘bland story’, ‘generic plot’, ‘familiar storyline’, etc. While the ending is pretty predictable (come on, I don’t think they could’ve ended it any other way unless you want to risk leaving the audience feeling ‘cheated’), there were certainly a lot of inspired moments like the Fernando sequence or Blu’s paraglider flight. I don’t really know how they could’ve told the story any more different… short of having Blu never learning to fly, or Jewel dying, or some sort of ‘unhappy’ ending which would defeat the entire purpose of the character arcs.
And of course, had they left out Carnival, you’d get hordes of angry Brazilian viewers or Carnival-enthusiasts complaining how could they have left out the biggest festival in Rio for an animated film. Why would they want to leave it out anyway, when it has so much story and visual potential?
Or if they had left out ‘[spoil]Girl From Ipanema[/spoil]’. Sure, that would’ve been a less obvious choice, but what other native Brazilian songs can they feature which has such a broad international appeal? They could’ve done an original song like they did with ‘Le Festin’ for Ratatouille or ‘Our Town’ for Cars, but I personally didn’t mind they included this classic number much. And it was only a reference, not an entire musical number dedicated to it. I personally was less impressed by ‘Mas Que Nada’, which was featured heavily in the teasers and trailers to the point of annoyance.
And I hope you’re referring to the lyrical version of ‘Aquarela do Brasil’ and not the Terry Gilliam instrumental cover. Because I agree that the former would be beautiful, and that the latter with its mechanical clockwork sound effects would be horrible.
Anyway, you brought up some good points (like the superfluous supporting characters), but your review comes off as a little bitter and cynical, and I’m not sure whether this is your usual writing style or if you just happened to be very annoyed by Rio’s predictability (which I would argue is just as predictable as say, ‘Toy Story’ or ‘Kung Fu Panda’).
I’ll probably check it out once it’s on DVD, though!