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FLUSHED AWAY

A third collaboration between Britain’s Aardman studio and DreamWorks animation

Jul 21, 2010

A third collaboration between Britain’s Aardman studio and DreamWorks animation, this puckish charmer about a posh Kensington mouse flushed down the loo into London sewer country is to action-adventure what Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was to Hammer Horror. Aardman’s first foray into CGI may spell woe to loyal fans of the Plasticine monobrow, but there are gains too in the delights of a watery, Technicolor alternate universe, fully furnished with shopping malls and populated with a cast of thousands, that could never have been brought off with stop-motion. Pampered house mouse Roddy St. James (voiced by Hugh Jackman) also sings, as who wouldn’t after being rescued by a can-do sewer rat named Rita (Kate Winslet) wearing red spaghetti hair and an iron will? Abetted by other critters with names like Millicent Bystander, the two rodents face off against the dastardly Toad (Ian McKellen) and his less-than-competent goons (Andy Serkis and the adorably adenoidal Bill Nighy). Beyond the obligatory Hollywood moralizing about community and cooperation, and the usual Aardman pokes at the mutual disdain of Brits and Frogs, there’s a heartfelt upstairs-downstairs tale of urban loneliness redeemed by love and family. And what’s not to love about a premise in which thousands of upstanding rodents stand together against a Big Wave generated by thousands of TV-watching soccer fans flushing their toilets at halftime? (Ella Taylor)