Flushed Away (2006)

Flushed Away follows the adventures of posh rat Roddy St. James (voiced by Hugh Jackman). Roddy, left at home while his owner is on vacation, gets flushed down the toilet when squatter rat Sid (voiced by Shane Ritchie) inadvertently comes up of his drain pipe. Out of his element, and now in the world of the sewer rats, Roddy meets up with Rita (voiced by Kate Winslet), and gets drawn right into the middle of her spat with crime boss The Toad (voiced by Sir Ian McKellen). Roddy enlists the help of Rita to try to get back home, all the while being chased by The Toad, his henchmen, and his French cousin, Le Frog (voiced by Jean Reno). Rita and Roddy must work together to stop The Toad's horrible plot to destroy the sewer underworld, all the while teaching Roddy what it means to have friends and family.

If that synopsis sounded lackluster, it's because the movie really was. I can't fake it and make it sound better than it is. I guess I expected more from the group that gave us Wallace & Grommit. This was their first foray into a feature-length CGI picture, instead of using their trademark claymation (I guess the script calling for so much water would lead one to do that), and it just stripped a layer of creativity away from the film for me.

Unfortunately, this film pandered too much to kids. Granted, it's a kids' movie, but come on, one too many nut-shots just brings the humor level down a notch for me. There was no sharpness to the story. Way too simplistic, way too breezily executed. Was really the only growth in the film the thin layer of plot where Roddy learns the meaning of friendship? Instead of writers Sam Fell and Peter Lord filling the script to the brim with British in-jokes (knocks against the French, making it to the World Cup finals only to lose on penalties, old biddies loving Tom Jones, etc.) they could have smartened it up a bit. Nothing that was done or said in this film broke any new ground.

It was a bit of a trip listening to Hugh Jackman do an RP dialect in this film, though. First time I had heard that (though he might have done it in other films; I don't know, I haven't seen all of his work). I wouldn't have known it was him if I hadn't caught his name in the opening credits. Same thing with Kate Winslet. I'd never heard her do a cockney dialect. It wasn't half bad. A few spots that I cringed (but I get hyper-analytical with accents and dialects), but overall she nailed it. And Sir Ian McKellen is much like Peter O'Toole for me, in that I can hear him recite the phone book and melt. Such a great voice, and used very well to bring The Toad to life. Nefarious enough, and such a sharp delivery.

Well, I'm afraid this film was a bit too dumbed down for me to really enjoy, and the CGI left me a bit cold. Unfortunately so. We'll see if they venture into another CGI project again. If they do, hopefully they can make it a bit more adult friendly. Besides, kids aren't as dumb as we like to believe.