Flushed Away

Animation, Comedy, Family

Kate Winslet	Rita
Hugh Jackman	Roddy
Ian McKellen	Toad
Andy Serkis	Spike
Bill Nighy	Whitey
Shane Richie	Sid
Susan Duerden	Voice
Jean Reno	Le Frog
Kathy Burke	Rita's Mum
David Suchet	Rita's Dad
Miriam Margolyes	Rita's Grandma

Director	David Bowers; Sam Fell
Producer	Cecil Kramer; Peter Lord; Maryann Garger; David Sproxton
Writer	Sam Fell; Peter Lord; Dick Clement; Ian La Frenais

Pet rat Roddy (Hugh Jackman) is living with a well-to-do family. When his family goes on vacation, he has his home invaded by a lower class street rat, who flushes him down the toilet and into an underground sewer rat society that is very different from what he is used to. While trying to find his way home, he has several adventures. He meets a gorgeous female rat on the run from the sewer mob who stole a jewel from her father and her poor family, has high-speed chase adventures on her ship and saves the sewer society from an evil bad guy who wants to kill everyone. The experiences teach Roddy about the importance of love and friendship versus wealth and status.

Flushed Away is a rip-roaring nautical adventure with a twist: The heroes are a pair of rodents braving the sewers underneath London. Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) is an upper-crust house-mouse who finds himself flushed into the subterranean sewers. Eager to return to his posh home, he enlists the help of a boat-captain rat named Rita (Kate Winslet), who has troubles of her own; namely the kingpin of the underworld, the Toad (Ian McKellen), and his henchmen including the French mercenary Le Frog (Jean Reno).

While technically Flushed Away could be considered part of the wave of celebrity-voiced, anthropomorphic-animal movies that hit in 2005-2006 (Madagascar, Over the Hedge, The Wild, etc.), it doesn't inspire the same sense of déjà vu. For one thing, its voice actors are less recognizable than the likes of Bruce Willis and Chris Rock. For another, its look is very distinctive. Like Nick Park's Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, it's a joint production of DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Features, and although Park isn't involved, it retains his trademark blocky look of clay animation. But animating the movie by computer rather than by hand allows for some eye-popping tableaux, such as floodwaters rushing through the sewers and an entire town of little animated characters. It's a crazy thrill ride loaded with inside jokes and enough crude humor to earn a PG rating, and the band of singing slugs is also a hoot.