Captured by smugglers when he was just a hatchling, a macaw named Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) never learned to fly and lives a happily domesticated life in Minnesota with his human friend, Linda. Blu is thought to be the last of his kind, but when word comes that Jewel (Anne Hathaway), a lone female, lives in Rio de Janeiro, Blu and Linda go to meet her. Animal smugglers kidnap the Blu and Jewel, but the birds soon escape and begin a perilous adventure back to freedom -- and Linda.