Rio 2 3D, film review: An utterly predictable plot but colour, wit and inventiveness make it acceptable Easter holiday fare

(U) Carlos Saldanha, 101 mins Voiced by: Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg

Blue, Jewel and their kids have gone to the Amazon forest get in touch with their roots (TM and © 2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

This sequel to the 2011 animated feature presents such a relentlessly upbeat vision of Brazil that you guess it must have been made in conjunction with the Ministry of Tourism.

Most of the drama unfolds deep in the Amazon forest where the macaws, Blue (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), Jewel (Anne Hathaway) and their kids, have gone to get in touch with their roots – and perhaps to meet some old relatives. The plotting is utterly predictable. The carnival and football references soon begin to grate.

A rapacious businessman is busy cutting down the rainforest. City slicker Blue struggles to integrate with his wife's family members, who live in the wilds and disapprove of humans. Some of the musical sequences here are very clumsily integrated into the main action.

Nonetheless, there is enough colour, wit and inventiveness here to make this acceptable enough Easter holiday fare for children and adults alike.