Review
It's no surprise you won't find Nick Park's name anywhere on Flushed Away, other than a "special thanks" in the closing credits. Anyone acquainted with Park's beloved ambassadors, Wallace and Gromit, will recognize the London sewer rats in Flushed Away as descendents of that animation style. But when these characters -- with their familiar big eyes and smiling teeth -- are created digitally, rather than using Park's trademark stop-motion animation, it feels like a cheat. Wallace and Gromit were hand-crafted labors of love, designed as they were for the ease of repositioning their clay features. Mimicking them digitally feels like Dreamworks' cold attempt to reel viewers in through familiarity. No doubt Park would have also written a much more understated script than the breathless, manic effort churned out by the myriad of scribes given screenplay and story credits here. While having rats as main characters would not end up being a problem for Pixar's Ratatouille, it doesn't work so well on this excursion -- in part due to the whole icky toilet-flushing concept, but mostly because the rats aren't part of any real London a person can relate to. In some ways they do interact with the discarded refuse of a modern society, such as using a plastic bag as a parachute. But because they wear little tiny rat clothes, and have little tiny rat forks and rat spoons, the illusion of reality is shattered -- leaving Flushed Away as full-on kiddie entertainment, lacking the cleverness an adult requires. It doesn't help that Hugh Jackman's Roddy and Kate Winslet's Rita are being chased by a tiresome bunch of Cockney-accented rat hoodlums, who seem better suited to a Guy Ritchie movie. Just because you have a faster animation process at your disposal, doesn't mean you need to shortchange writing a story with heart. ~ All Movie Guide
Synopsis
A previously pampered society mouse must fight his way back to the comforts of Kensington after he is sent spiraling into an underground world filled with scavenger rats and villainous toads in a fun-filled family adventure produced by DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Features and featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, and Jean Reno. Roddy (Jackman) was living the high life when he first met Sid the sewer rat (Shane Richie), but that's all about to change when Sid decides to send the hapless mouse down the pipes and stealthily take his place in the lap of luxury. Though the bustling sewer city of Ratropolis isn't without its fair share of kind citizens, it is certainly no place for a pampered mouse with a taste for life's finer things. Upon making the acquaintance of scavenger rat Rita (Winslet), Roddy is certain that the pair can navigate their way back to the surface in Rita's trusty boat, the
Jammy Dodger, but Rita's help doesn't come cheap, and the nefarious Toad (McKellen) is determined to rid Ratropolis of all things rodent. When Toad's hapless hench-rats Spike (Andy Serkis) and Whitey (Bill Nighy) fail to achieve acceptable results, the green meanie is forced to call in the cavalry in the form of legendary French mercenary Le Frog (Reno) to get the job done. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
