Riki Rhino Animated Film About Endangered Animals That Are Cute, Warm and Full of Messages

Until now, local animated films produced by the nation's children can still be counted on the fingers of the number. We are still far behind from Hollywood animation films, Europe and even our closest neighbor Malaysia which has animated films with interesting characters such as Upin Ipin and Boboiboy.

Now in early 2020, after MNC Pictures released the film Titus: Mystery of The Enygma, a new animated film produced by Batavia Pictures is trying to be present to enliven the animated film market for children and families. Riki Rhino by director Erwin Budiono and voiced by Hamish Daud, Ge Pamungkas, Zack Lee, Raden Mas Cemen, Mo Sidik, Mikaela Lee, Dimas Danang, Niken Anjani, Aurel Hermansyah, and others. The film Riki Rhino opens in all theaters starting February 27, 2020.
Synopsis

Riki (voiced by Hamish Daud) is a teenage rhino who lives alone and is only accompanied by a duck named Beni (Ge Pamungkas) who is talkative and resourceful. The attitude of helping Riki made him very liked by the forest people, Riki became a confident and tough rhino. But all changed when his horn was stolen by a cruel hunter Mr. Jak (Zack Lee).

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Riki becomes sad and does not believe in himself anymore, he believes that the horn is the source of his strength. Beni, who is worried about Riki, also tries to make a replacement horn at the expense of his feathers, even though he initially refuses, but Riki finally accepts the replacement horn and with Beni is determined to go on an adventure to find a way to improve the horn.

Riki and Beni's adventure begins along the Sumatran jungle meeting tigers, elephants, turtles and bumping into two hilarious amateur hunters, Jathul (Raden Mas Cemen) and Bogeng (Mo Sidik) who turn out to be Mr. Jak. Riki was forced to meet again with Mr. Jak.
Batavia

Pictures as a production house that produced the film Riki Rhino is actually not a new name in the animation film industry in . Previously they had made six animated films with the specific character of a lion from an ice cream product that had a special title The Adventure of the Brave Lion. Now, after eating a lot of salt and acid making an animated film with a new character, they are also making the character of a Sumatran rhino named Riki, who is packed in an adventure with various other  rare animal characters to fight against wild animal hunters and illegal loggers.

Using the services of a script writer Cassandra Massardi (Get M4rried, Handsome Tailor) from Jony Yuwono's story, Riki Rhino has an exciting story plot, full of action and a moral message that is not patronizing. The story scrolls chronically with character motivation and clear cause-and-effect events and interesting characterizations. The character development of Riki and Beni is well explored along with the ups and downs of their relationship tension. Cassandra Massardi has done a very good job making the script my favorite in this entire film.

For the entire film itself, with a good script, the execution led by director Erwin Budiono is quite satisfying, although there are flaws here and there. The quality of animation which still uses 2-dimensional technology is still far behind when compared to Hollywood animation, but it is not far behind from the production of a neighboring country. The production period of Riki Rhino, which has reached 4 years since researching and making animated models of animals, does take time, but the producers are quite satisfied and plan to make a follow-up film of Riki's adventures in the next films.

The note for this film is that the quality of animation must be continuously improved, especially the details of the character movements and mouth movements with the dubbing. There are still several scenes where the character's movements feel stiff and the mouth movements don't match the dialogue. But for the writer it's a minor thing that the animation team will definitely be able to fix in this film.

Another drawback is that the music score is not evenly distributed in all scenes, often in scenes when Riki and Rhino are walking there is no music running away, only the sound of the forest, making the film sound lonely. If we intend to have a natural forest atmosphere, it seems that it is a wrong decision considering this film is an animation with the main target audience is children. Even though the entire musical arrangement directed by Elwin Hendrijanto in this film is well composed with a combination of the orchestra with traditional musical instruments, even the original soundtrack of the film entitled Beauty Is The Land, sung by Jessica Januar, is very beautiful and fits perfectly with the film's theme.

Meanwhile, the excellence of the film, apart from the script and characterization, are Ge Pamungkas (Ship Shaking the Captain, Susah Signal) and Raden Mas Cemen (Former Goods Shop, The Fabulous Udin) as voice actors who have the most laughter. Ge often makes funny slurs with hilarious contemporary language, while Mas Cemen with his thick Javanese accent is often out of sync with his character as an evil hunter. The two voice actors, who happen to be stand-up comedians, are the flavor of the film.

The characterization in this film is also a writer favorite. When Riki and Beni go on an adventure they meet many characters of endangered species, from the Sumatran tiger with its cubs, Sumatran elephant, turtle to proboscis monkey, and at the climax, the characters increase with hedgehogs, rats, jungle cats, sun bears, and others. The good thing is that these characters have their own uniqueness.

Tiger cub Rara (Mikaela Lee) who is still learning to roar, then a small elephant that is full of determination to fight the hunter, the cowardly bear, Bebeb (Aurel Hermansyah) the bird who acts princess until Grada (Ridwan Kamil) the wise Javanese eagle. Besides the audience can enjoy the characters, they can also learn the names of these animals which are displayed in the credit title of the film.

The voice actors of the film work well although they are not as prominent as Ge Pamungkas and Raden Mas Cemen. Hamish Daud (Trinity The Nekad Traveler, Gangster) is quite good as Riki even though he doesn't feel that there is a unique characteristic, Mo Sidik (Opportunity Kedu (d) a, Gangster) as Bogeng is quite unique but feels repetitive to repeat his voice character.

Zack Lee (The Night Comes For Us, Jaga Pocong) is still stereotyped as his violent antagonist voice character, and Dimas Danang (Gundala, PSP: Student Style) is quite successful as a magic-good Proboscis monkey, but lacks stand out because it only appears at the end of the film. meanwhile, Aurel Hermansyah, Mikaela Lee, Arsy Hermansyah and Ridwan Kamil's special appearance were sufficient to give the character's voice color even though it was not too long to appear.
Final Conclusion

Riki Rhino is an animated film with a good script and characterization that will be easily liked by children and the whole family. Full of fun action and full of messages and has a quality dialogue humor that is funny. Even though it still has shortcomings here and there in terms of production, especially animation techniques, the film Riki Rhino is very worth watching to provide entertainment and learning facilities for children to get to know endangered species in  and understand the basic concepts of nature conservation.