Saturday, May 12, 2007

Flushed Away

Okay, those who know me well know that a movie that takes place almost entirely in the sewers is right up my alley, so to speak. Naturally, then, I loved Flushed Away.

Hugh Jackman voices Roddy, a pampered pet rat in Kensington who gets, you guessed it, flushed away. He discovers that there's a whole world in the sewers, populated mostly by rats, but also containing a Bond-villain toad (Ian McKellen in a reunion of the X-Men cast). Roddy meets Rita (Kate Winslett), becomes a hunted criminal known as Millicent Bystander (and if you don't laugh at that, maybe you don't need to see this movie), discovers what a family is like, and finally saves the day.

The gags come thick and fast (blink and you'll miss one), and the pop culture references come even faster. And then there are the slugs. I loved the slugs. I'd watch this again just for the slugs.

The movie's a CGI deal, but it looks a lot like Claymation, probably because of the involvement of some of the Aardman Studio gang. Purists might object, but the combination worked for me. I laughed a lot. Check it out.

4 comments:

Vince said...

I enjoyed this one a lot, too. The slugs made it, followed closely by Jean Reno's Le Frog.

Unknown said...

Le Frog was great, too. And his minions.

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

I thought Bill Nighy was great as Whitey. But, yeah, the slugs stole the picture.

Unknown said...

All the voice actors were good. Andy Serkis as Whitey's pal should be mentioned.