Flushed Away

The animated movie, unlike other genres, doesn't actually require a great deal of re-invention to keep its audiences enthralled. Since the main audience members are too young to remember the last time the same plot was recycled and they lack the cynicism of older viewers, they don't need anything major to keep them watching.

So most cartoons tend to keep it safe and stick with what they know works. The wonder of anthropomorphism. Especially with animals. Cats, dogs, mice, lions, you name it, they've been given a cutesy voice and a courageous quest to complete. The latest offering from Dreamworks takes one of the less appealing animals, the rat, and humanizes it in Flushed Away.

Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) is a pet rat who lives the high life. Living in Kensington, London, he takes pleasure in life's finer things, especially when his owners leave and he has the chance to roam the house. But one night, Roddy is disturbed by a late-night visitor. Appearing from the drain, Sid (voiced by Shane Richie) is a filthy, sewer rat who impinges on Roddy's safe haven, with bad manners and a lack of respect.

Roddy decides he can not deal with Sid any longer and comes up with a plan. He takes him to a 'jacuzzi' (also known as a toilet) and tries to trick Sid to jump in while Roddy turns on the 'bubbles'. But the plan backfires and Roddy gets flushed down into the sewer instead. He wakes to find himself in an underground city, populated with other rats. So begins a frantic journey home as he enlists the help of Rita (voiced by Kate Winslet).

Flushed Away marks the first CG collaboration of Dreamworks Animation and Aardman Studios. Dreamworks have of course been responsible for the Shrek films while Aardman Studios are best known for creating Wallace and Gromit. Flushed Away, therefore, is a concerted effort to combine box office clout with critical, even Oscar-winning acclaim.

Weirdly, in the battle of the American studio and the British animators, Britain wins out. Flushed Away is an aggressively British movie. At times it borders on rather unaccessible for an average audience member in Middle America. This means that it may struggle to attain Shrek-style success but as for the Best Animated Movie Oscar come February, I think we may have a frontrunner.

It has become commonplace now to say that animated films have jokes not just meant for the under-tens. But never before has a film been so brilliantly tailored to an adult audience. Almost to the detriment of the kids, Flushed Away contains so many subtleties and clever touches that parents really won't feel shortchanged with this one.

It tells the classic fish out of water tale that audiences never fail to find engaging and the film's main failing is how the plot falters once we've passed the

initial 'new world shock' Roddy faces. In order to introduce an antagonist, the film sets up a convoluted chain of events which eventually cause Roddy and Rita to be on the run from the evil Toad, voiced with expected relish by Ian McKellen. The film then turns into a chase movie but the constant stream of successful comedy means the wafer-thin reasoning behind the chase is forgivable.

It's the supporting characters who tend to provide the most laughs in Flushed Away. The screaming, singing slugs, although a tad overused, were a universal hit with the audience while Ian McKellen makes for a fantastic villain. Later in the film, his French cousin voiced by Jean Reno crops up and is another genius comic creation. He is sent, with his crack team of kung-fu fighting frogs to find Roddy and Rita. He instructs Toad that he will leave right away. Then one of his team reminds him about dinner. He then instructs Toad he will leave in 5 hours.

The film also takes an OTT sideswipe at obnoxious American tourists, but evens things out by providing some overblown British stereotypes. As British as the movie may be, every accent is still made accessible for international audiences. When compared to the animated offerings of the summer, Cars and Over The Hedge, it contains so many more memorably funny moments. It also has a ton of pop culture references, seamlessly mixed into the script.

Flushed Away probably isn't going to be the big hit it deserves to be. Well, not in America at least. But for those parents lucky enough to be dragged by their kids to see this, they'll be pleasantly surprised. The plot is agreeably thin but the emphasis is on comedy and the script is full of sparkling one-liners and hugely inventive ideas. Like I said before, animated films don't have to constantly reinvent to attract their audiences, and okay so Flushed Away still relies on talking animals but there's enough ingenuity here to mark this as better than most.

Movie Grade: B-

Synopsis:

The story of an uptown rat that gets flushed down the toilet from his penthouse apartment, ending in the sewers of London, where he has to learn a whole new and different way of life.