Customer Reviews

Flushed Away

5 star:		(88)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Perhaps that's because it's from Aardman Studios, famous for "Wallace And Gromit" and "Chicken Run." Aardman is also well known for their claymation style of animation, which is lovingly preserved, albeit through the use of CGI in "Flushed Away."

The story revolves around Roddy (Hugh Jackman), a family pet who gets flushed into the sewers of London by an unwelcome guest named Sid (Shane Richie). Sid takes over the world "up there" while Roddy is left to fight for his life in the seedy underbelly of London's sewers. In all actuality, though, life in the sewers isn't too terribly bad. When Roddy arrives there, he finds a near replica of London full of busy streets and shops. He decides that he must get home, and seeks out the aid of Rita (Kate Winslet), a female rat who's known for shady dealings. On her tail (pun intended) are the goons of The Toad (Sir Ian McKellan), who says that a ruby he owned which fell from the crown of either Prince Charles or the Queen (I don't remember which) was stolen by her and he wants it back. Of course Roddy thinks that by assisting him in finding the ruby, he'll get help in return to get back home. What he gets instead is more trouble when Rita steals something else from The Toad.

From there, the story becomes a pretty decent action/comic yarn where The Toad's cousin, Le Frog (Jean Reno) and his henchmen try to retrieve the item that Rita has stolen. It's an integral part of a master plan for revenge by The Toad on all of rodent-kind. Along the way, Roddy and Rita become close friends and Roddy decides that he has to help Rita and her family. It's all tied nicely together in the end and is definitely fun to watch.

The voice talents are wonderful. Jackman, Winslet, McKellan and Reno all do wonderful jobs. Andy Serkis, who portrayed Gollum in "Lord of the Rings" and did a lot of the physical movements of Kong in Peter Jackson's "King Kong," plays one of The Toad's henchmen along with Bill Nighy, recent of the latest "Pirate's of the Caribbean" flick.

The humor is, as expected, well grounded in British comedy and uses slapstick at will to enduce laughter from children. There are plenty of crotch injuries, one fart joke, and a few pokes at stereotypical Americans and the French. It's all done with good intentions and there's nothing really offensive here.

It will hold the attention of both young and old, but children will probably enjoy it more than adults. I enjoyed it but I have a tendency to enjoy silly children's flicks like this. I'm also a fan of Aardman's other work, so perhaps I'm a little biased. Rest assured that whenever it leaves the theaters and eventually hits the DVD rack, I'll be one of the first to buy it for myself and my family.

The first two reviews pretty well summed up this great movie! Funny, fast paced and lots of in jokes, past film references, sight gags from other Aardman films, a good story and was well executed!
I highly recommend this movie if you love "Chicken Run", and "Wallace & Gromit". If you have not seen any of Aardmans other shows/movies you will miss a few sight gags, but that is certionly no reason not to see this! So in the end; This movie is a must see and definitely fun for the whole family.

I have to be honest. This probably deserves four stars instead of five, but despite a sometimes-rushed narrative there were so many delightful moments in this film that I couldn't with a light heart give it less. In the never-ending search for new subjects to animate, no one had before attempted to tell a story about sewer rats. Fortunately, the rats in FLUSHED AWAY are remarkably humanoid, largely covered with light-colored skin, and sporting not terribly disgusting tails. So while this is a story of rats, they are rats with all of the unpleasantries associated with the vermin stripped away.

The film was made by Aardman Productions, the company founded on the success of Nick Park's amazing Claymation projects, most famously the Wallace and Gromit films as well as CHICKEN RUN. This film is all CGI, I suspect because most of the scenes are set in the sewer, which is surrounded by water. I'm not sure that it would be possible to do a Claymation project that involves copious amounts of water. Although the film is CGI, all the characters sport the look that we all associate with Nick Park projects. Interestingly, Park does not appear in the credits, although the aesthetic he created permeates the film.

The story tells the ordeals suffered by Roddy, a pet rat owned by a little girl in Kensington in London. When the family is on vacation and the house is invaded by a street punk rat (voiced by Shane Ritchie of THE EASTENDERS), the elegant rat finds himself flushed down the toilet to the sewer, where he discovers an entire community of rats. Wanting to return home, he is directed to a boat owned by a female rat named Rita. The rest of the film deals both with Rita's attempt to help Roddy get home as well as their struggles to evade the minions of a toad sewer lord. The plot is adequate to the task, but what is delightful about the film is the wonderfully fresh and inventive humor. There are also a number of animals used to great effect that have amazingly been neglected by the legions of earlier animal animators, in particular snails, which are used for comic relief and for -- I am not kidding -- musical background. There is also a wonderful gang of frogs that are, of course, French. Led by their chief Le Frog, they are masters of the martial arts and have their very own mime, who provides some of the film's finest comic moments.

One reason the film succeeds so wonderfully is the first cast voiceover talent. Hugh Jackman gets to put some of his talents to use that were never needed in the X-Men films, even getting to show off his outstanding singing voice on a couple of numbers. Kate Winlet is appropriately fetching as Rita and Ian McKellan is marvelously over-the-top as Toad. Andy Serkis and Bill Nighy voice Toad's two main henchmen. One of the great delights of the movie is Le Frog, voiced by Jean Reno.

I think this is a film that can be equally enjoyed by parents and their kids. The preview audience that I saw this with contained probably more adults than it will enjoy upon general release, but the few kids in the audience laughed very hard throughout. So did the adults. There are a number of animated films coming out in the next couple of months for the holidays, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this one might end up being the best -- and certainly the funniest -- of the bunch.

I found Flushed Away a very amusing movie that my entire family enjoyed. The story line was predictable, but enjoyable. It was one of those movies you can watch over an over.
The signing slugs were one of the perks in the movie, very, very amusing, though everything else was just laugh-out loud comedy.
It's defintily a family movie that everyone can enjoy.

Wonderful animation movie with cute songs, adorable critters and sweet characters. A privileged pet rat gets flushed by an unwanted, rude guest (another rat from the sewers) and is sent into a world far different than his pampered cage. He struggles to get back 'up top' to his old home and easy lifestyle. However, a rich rat discovers that his cushy life is pretty empty without friends and family and must decide if they are better than clean cages and cuisine. Delightful family entertainment!

Chrissy K. McVay - Author

This is a delightful movie. The visuals are a top notch, but the characterizations are even better. Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet play the romantic leads as Roddy and Rita. He is a upper crust pet rat from Kensington (a suburb within London) and Rita comes from down down down in the sewers. The rats down there seem to have built their city.

They meet because Roddy's family (owners) leave for a vacation. Roddy entertains himself as best he can when out of the pipes comes Sid (Shane Ritchie) who clearly comes from somewhere less refined. Sid announces he is taking over and Roddy's plan to get rid of Sid backfires and Roddy ends up flushed into the sewers. Roddy tries to get some help to get back to Kensington, which leads him to Rita. She has real troubles of her own and Roddy's troubles multiply.

Ian McKellen plays Toad, the big boss of this underworld. He wants something that he claims Rita took, and has some secret plan that I won't get into here. His main two henchmen are Whitey (the large one - played by Bill Nighy who played Davey Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean 2) and Spike (the small one - played by Andy Sirkis who played Gollum in Lord of the Rings and King Kong). These two have some great lines together.

Toad also enlists the help of Le Frog (Jean Reno - who has played so many wonderful roles) and his own band of henchfrogs. And being French they have many lines related to those quirks. For example, Le Frog says, "We now have a mission! Let nothing stand in our way! We leave immediately!" One of the henchfrongs asks, "What about dinner?". Silence. Then Le Frog says, "We leave in five hours!!"

I am sure there has never been a movie that has used slugs so extensively and to such good effect. They form a kind of chorus that supplies some of the movie's incidental music, its ambient music, some commentary on the scenes and even draw on our sympathy when they seem threatened. Essentially, they are the movie's chorus.

This is a fun family film. Enjoy! It isn't Shrek, but still better than good.

This bit of British style humor works very well in this movie. Though it looks like the claymation style of Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit, it was in fact done by computers and it shows through terrific visual effects. The story of a pampered above ground rat that gets flushed down the toilet to the sewers below is the typical fish out of water tale, but done well. At 84 minutes, the action is fast and furious and my [...] was entertained the entire time. The slugs were really funny, and there was a whole lot of groin shots throughout the movie. I found the dvd to be a terrific copy and filled with lots of entertaining extras. Great for the kids and entertaining enough for the adults.

I'll admit it. I was thought that Aardman going CG with their animation was a bad idea. Part of the appeal of their work was that they still used dolls, clay and traditional stop motion. You could see and appreciate the time the movie took to make and almost feel the love for the art coming right through your set. Sure CG has a place in the world of animation, but also believe firmly in keeping the older arts alive and thriving. Aardman was doing a great job with their stop motion work; why change a good thing?

Part of it was technical. "Flushed Away" contains so many scenes with water and fluids rising, splashing and whirling that stop motion would have been next to impossible. CG was the best way to handle it. Luckily Aardman kept their traditional look to their characters. In the end, the mix works wonderfully. The film is dynamic, fast paced and lots of fun. The CG helps, and doesn't stand out at all. In fact the movie is full of details in backgrounds and throw away sight gags that you can watch it multiple times to take it all in.

The voice casting and performances are excellent. Everyone seems to be having a great time with their parts and somehow manages to make you forget you are listening to a bunch of A-list celebraties. I'd hate to single any one performance out, because they were all so good. The score and songs used in the film also work wonderfully. The songs are picked because they fit the film (and are not shoehorned into the movie to sell the soundtrack), and that is refreshing.

If there is anything wrong with the movie its the simple fact that the script feels overly worked to make it more family friendly. In other words, some of the simple charms that Aardman has in their films has been polished and scrubbed away. The film has a total of 15 writers working on it. At times you can almost feel the number of hands working on this cake. Some of the jokes have the feel of "let's put this in here, because kids love that kind of stuff". It makes moments in the film seem a bit unnatural and not really in line with previous Aardman films. However, I doubt anyone but a serious fan of their work would notice.

With that said, I recommend this movie. It's not as good as "Wallace and Gromit", but really what is? It's great fun, and the voice acting is top notch. Its too bad that the movie did so poorly in theaters. it didn't deserve it at all. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

A lot of folks were worried that this film would be just a lot of toilet humor & they gave it a miss. Mistake! Although the story takes place in the sewer, we found it to be the kind of fresh, brilliant fun that we've come to expect from Aardman. If you liked Wallace & Gromit and Creature Comforts, you'll love Flushed Away. Fans might like to seek out a rare 38 min interview with Nick Park on iTunes (search "Nick Park" to find the interview podcast where he's the guest). He talks about the 5 years making the Wallace & Gromit feature and mentions their new animated feature Flushed Away. This film is a great, hilarious ride for fans of any age. Don't miss it.

I bought this amazing Crazy DVD at Target! I just love the packaging!!! and the price was good only $16.99 dollars!! go to your Target store before buying from here, it's a lot cheaper @ the store!!!