Susan Granger’s review of “Flushed Away” (Paramount Pictures)
From the animation team that created “Shrek” and “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” comes this action-packed adventure set under the streets of London.
Roddy St. James (voiced by Hugh Jackman) is a pampered ‘posh’ pet mouse who lives as in a gilded cage, a mouse mansion, in Kensington. When a lowly sewer rat, Sid (voiced by Shane Richie), spews from the sink to watch the World Cup on television, fastidious Roddy tries to get rid of him by luring him into the “whirlpool bath” but gets flushed away instead. Suddenly, he’s plunged into the subterranean world of Ratropolis, where he meets a sassy, spunky rodent named Rita (voiced by Kate Winslet), a scavenger who comes to Roddy’s rescue with her boat, the Jammy Dodger. The villains are power-hungry Boss Toad (voiced by Ian McKellen) with his hench-rats (voiced by Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy) and his mercenary French cousin, Le Frog (voiced by Jean Reno).
Written by Sam Fell, Peter Lord, Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and Will Davies and directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell, it’s fast-paced and steeped in crude British culture, which may be a bit confusing for youngsters who will giggle, nevertheless, at the many body-function jokes. Adults will appreciate the dry, often ironic one-liners, perhaps even the Kafka jokes.
CGI animation meticulously replicates the surreal look and feel of the stop-motion Claymation for which Aardman was best known, and the voice-casting is spot-on. My favorites were the singing slugs, blob-like creatures who warble pop songs, commenting on the action, like a Greek chorus – with credit due to Harry Gregson-Williams’ score. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Flushed Away” is a witty, if chaotic 8, not just for kids.
