It doesn't take four minutes for "Rio" to set itself apart from all the "Ice Age" movies that the animators at Blue Sky made before it. In a rain forest, parrots, macaws, cockatoos and toucans sing and dance the samba in a flying delirium of color.

And then the poachers show up.

Comical, colorful, wonderfully cast and beautifully animated, "Rio" is an adventure comedy about endangered species set to a rump-shaking beat -- and the first Blue Sky movie that could be compared to the best of Pixar. It tackles weighty subjects with a light touch, embraces the music of the culture it visits and delivers delights like few cartoons this side of the Golden Age of Disney.

Blu, given a witty, nervous nerdy voice by the wonderful Jesse Eisenberg, was nabbed during the bird-napping expedition in the opening. He tumbles into the hands of little Linda and they grow up in Moose Lake, Minn., devoted to each other. Fifteen years later, a goofy scientist (Rodrigo Santoro) talks shy, homebody Linda (Leslie Mann) into bringing Blu to Rio de Janeiro.

It turns out that Blu is the last male cerulean blue macaw and there's a female blue macaw who has to be his Miss Right. Of course, the spunky, jungle-savvy Jewel (Anne Hathaway) wants nothing from Blu but his help in escaping. That's tricky, as he never learned how to fly. And he doesn't get her mania for freedom. "I wouldn't expect a pet to understand," she hisses.

And then they're poached, again, by a gang of thieves with a wicked pet cockatoo (a perfect Jemaine Clement). The macaws will have to learn to work together. And they'll need the help of a friendly, henpecked toucan (George Lopez), a couple of streetwise, crooning/rapping songbirds (Jamie Foxx and will.i.am) and a daffy bulldog (Tracy Morgan) to pull this off.

All this happens during Brazil's Carnival, a nationwide orgy of costumed parades, glitter and song, showcased in dazzling digital 3-D.

Brazilian-born director Carlos Saldanha may have earned his bones with those obscenely successful "Ice Age" movies, but give him a project close to his heart -- he co-scripted this -- and the movie sings. Literally. While the songs (including Clement's wickedly funny "Pretty Bird") don't compare with Disney's best, "Rio" is a delight -- better than anything we've seen in animated form this year.