Featuring the voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, and Bruno Mars. Rated G.

Sequelitis makes samba problems for Rio 2, a manic update on our feathered friends from the first Rio. That brightly colourful, if ethnically challenged, cartoon detailed the effects on a rare, Minnesota-based blue macaw when transplanted back to his species’ native Brazil.

When we left off, Jesse Eisenbird’s, I mean, Eisenberg’s Blu had wisely relocated to Rio de Janeiro and mated with the last of his mackind, the feisty Jewel, voiced by Anne Hathaway (who, judging by the accent, must be from the Santa Monica-expats quarter of Copacabana). They’ve since had three fledglings and settled nicely into carioca life, as viewed in the sweeping opener set on New Year’s eve, with Rio’s beaches blanketed by white-clad revelers.

When their human counterparts, scientists Tulio and Linda (again Rodrigo Santoro and Leslie Mann), discover a previously unseen gaggle of blue macaws deep in the Amazon jungle, our TV-watching bird brood flies off in search of their aviary roots. They bring along some animal buddies, held over from the first movie, although damned if I can remember their names or personalities. And the gang is followed by a previous nemesis, a hammily vengeful cockatiel voiced by Jemaine Clement, accompanied by a deliciously toxic-looking frog. She sounds much like Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth, so it’s clear that quasi-operatic high jinks will ensue.

These are more amusing than anything that happens when Blu and company find Jewel’s original flock, and he gets cowed by her brush-cut father (Andy Garcia) and a rival suitor (a pleasingly self-deprecating Bruno Mars). There’s kind of a cool futebol match to determine who gets most of the local Brazil nuts (yeah, they’re not called that there) and an overly rushed environmental message. But the long passages of dull dialogue (from director Carlos Saldanha and others) and forced slapstick may prove more tedious to children than to their parents.