Love drives this animated 3D flight of fancy from Carlos Saldanha, director of the Ice Age series and a native of the title city. Love such as that between a nerdy Minnesota bookseller (voiced by Leslie Mann) and her pet blue macaw, Blu (Jesse Eisenberg), who might be one of the last of his species. Or between Brazilian ornithologist Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) and nature, a love that motivates him to take Blu to Rio to mate with Jewel (Anne Hathaway), another of the few surviving macaws. Unfortunately, feisty Jewel doesn't much love Blu, mostly because he can't fly and he trusts humans. Cash-hungry exotic-bird smugglers with a cannibalistic cockatoo (Jemaine Clement) complicate Tulio's project. Throw in Carnival and you have a lush, vibrant visual feast with sassy musical interludes. But the adventure of Blu and Jewel never quite takes off.
