Souris City

Like a lot of film reviewers, I had a lot of reservations about this film when I first saw the trailer. At first I thought it was going to be just another hastily made CGI cartoon about edgy cartoon animals, filled with top 40 or dance songs and full of topical jokes. The fact that as I waited for the movie to start, half the trailers were for more CGI cartoons about edgy cartoon animals and the other half was for films about trash talking fairy tale characters.

Thankfully this movie was a blessed reprieve from all of that. In Flushed Away, Aardman studios has made yet another family classic that will still be as entertaining ten years from now as it is today. Granted, it's loaded with a lot of pop songs and oldies, but most of them are sung by a chorus of slugs (which makes for one of the best running gags I've seen in a while).

The story actually felt pretty fresh for a family movie, or any movie for that matter. While it's by no means unpredictable, it doesn't feel too much like it's treading over the same ground most family films seem to go over these days. The jokes were surprisingly clever too. While there's the usual slapstick humor, there's also plenty of highbrow jokes thrown in the mix. (How often do you find references to Kafka in an animated feature, after all?) What I liked best about this movie was that Aardman stayed true to its roots of making stop-motion films. My initial worry was that they had sold out and were going to just make CGI films from here on out like everybody else, but when you watch this film, you'll see that they do as much as possible to maintain the look of their other animated films like Chiken Run and Wallace & Gromit. Overall this is a great selection to take your family to see, and worth seeing even if you're a grown up too.

Wallace and Gromit are critics darlings. Chicken Run had great reviews as well. I liked all those animated films somewhat, but I never understood their appeal to the critics. To me they were just so-so. This film has not done as well with the critics. It retains somewhat the look of the aforementioned claymation that Aardman is so famous for, but as most people reading this are probably well aware, it is strictly computer animated fare. I truly enjoyed it more than the other films by the talented animators at Aardman. Not a lot more. I much preferred the Shrek films and The Incredibles for recent animated greats. But you could do a lot worse than spending 90 minutes with your kids in a theater watching Flushed Away. ( The film across the hall at my multiplex comes to mind as I really did not want to go watch Tim Allen in a Santa suit for a third time.) The slugs (or perhaps they were leeches) were my favorite characters in the film. I found myself laughing a lot at their antics, sound effects and musical talent. I had fun. Nothing great but a good deal of fun.

Hugh Jackman is everywhere these days, from reprising his iconic Wolverine role in summer blockbuster X3, to starring twice alongside Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's Scoop and Christopher Nolan's The Prestige, and now, just lending his voice to a lead character in the animated film Flushed Away, co-starring his summer blockbuster star Sir Ian McKellen. Soon to come will be Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. Whew! There seems to be no stopping this Hollywood flavour of the month!

Despite this animated movie being yet another one of many based on talking animals, Flushed Away doesn't try too hard to be funny by steamrolling pop culture into the story. It just is funny with its deft touches, be it dialogue, slapstick, or various sight gags. Although it's set primarily in the sewers, it's beautiful chaos, with loads of little details all over that you'll probably need to watch it twice over to appreciate all the effort put in to create the computerized graphical sets.

At first glance, you might think you're watching a Wallace and Gromit animated show. Yes, this is produced by the same studio, Aardman Animations, in association with Dreamworks, and it is no wonder that the animation, although computer generated, maintained a very clay like look and feel, as well as character designs bearing similar resemblance in style to W&G.

The story is simple enough, yet adequately satisfying by the time the end credits roll. As the trailer suggested, Aristocratic rat pet Roddy from Kensington (Hugh Jackman) thought he just had the whole classy apartment to himself, when an unexpected guest Sid (Shane Richie) from the sewers gatecrashes into his abode, and ejects him through the "jacuzzi". All these in less than 10 minutes. So begins a mad journey in an unknown sewer world which replicated the modern London City above it with junk, where he has to figure out friend from foe, and find his way back to where he belongs.

The themes of family and friends do not come on too strongly, instead the story preferred to let the character interactions bring forth the messages. Supporting or interfering in his quest are characters like Rita (Kate Winslet), The Toad (Ian McKellen), French Le Frog (Jean Reno), and rat minions Whitey (Bill Nighy) and Spike (Andy Serkis). It's quite commendable that in its less than 90 minutes runtime, it allowed for quite a bit of set action pieces to develop, along with almost laugh-a-minute lines of dialogue, a good mix of songs (Hugh sings!) and ooh, a diabolical plot.

But what perhaps is the show stealer, are the sewer slugs. Ever popping up and performing at the right time, I'm sure they are crowd favourites despite their less than pleasant looking exterior. I wonder if they do sell the soft toy version, as it should be quite hilarious.

If too many animated flicks left this year has left you jaded with the genre, Flushed Away just flushes away the competition. Worth checking out on the big screen!

The fact that I could be entertained by another one of these animated talking animal movies is a miracle. Is this number 1000 over the past 2 years? I just love English sarcasm, wit, dryness that strikes a chord in these old bones. The great news, nobody was in drag.

During the movie, there are inside English jokes that Americans may not understand such as "England loses on penalty kicks" which is a modern football tradition in the UK and the English love of knick knacks. The singing slugs don't do it for me but the kids liked them.

I highly recommend this movie even if you are sick of computer animated talking animals.

Flushed Away is the perfect marriage between the American Dreamworks and their crass sense of humor and the British Aardman and their dry sense of humor. Beside the obvious jokes about the sewer there's much to enjoy for the more sophisticated viewer. Like a cockroach reading FranzKafka's The Metamorphosis. The voice-cast is spot on: Ian McKellen as the evil genius The Toad is pure delight, Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman are clearly having a blast giving their voices to rats Rita and Roddy. But the cream of the crop are the singing and screaming snails. When they sing at the top of their lungs Proud Mary you laugh so hard you have to check your underpants to see if you haven't had a little accident.