Synopsis

Roddy St James is a pampered pet rat who thinks he’s got it made. But when a sewer rat named Sid (the absolute definition of 'low life') comes spewing out of the sink and decides it’s his turn to enjoy the lap of luxury, Roddy schemes to rid himself of the pest by luring him into the loo for a dip in the 'whirlpool'. But streetwise Sid, isn't fooled at all. Roddy’s plan fails and he eds up being the one flushed away into the bustling world down below. Underground, Roddy St James discovers a vast metropolis, where he meets Rita, a street-wise rat who is on a mission of her own. If Roddy is going to get home, he and Rita will need to escape the clutches of the villainous Toad, who royally despises all rodents and has dispatched two hapless henchrats, Spike and former lab rat Whitey, as well as his cousin the dreaded mercenary, Le Frog to see that Roddy and Rita are iced. Literally!

What The Critics Say

"The film throws just enough lunacy at us to keep things entertaining even when we're not really sure where it's going." Peter T Chattaway CHRISTIANITY TODAY "This delightful computer animation is less twee than Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, with more action and a broader American sensibility." Andrea Gronvall CHICAGO READER "Though Roddy's tale is set in London, it's bloody obvious that DreamWorks is the American tail wagging the rat in this one." Thomas Delapa BOULDER WEEKLY "There's much that's enjoyable about this computer-animated movie, but in the end it feels a bit generic." Jeffrey Chen REELTALK MOVIE REVIEWS "Flushed Away was made by Aardman Animation, which also did Chicken Run and the Wallace and Gromit films. "Flushed Away" is not in their rarefied league, but it's pretty clever, anyway." Chris Hewitt ST PAUL PIONEER PRESS

"Flushed Away subsumes its British charm with an aggressive American pace and more obvious body-function humour, and the film shows evidence of an awkward fit between American and British sensibilities." Liam Lacey GLOBE AND MAIL "Action is all this film offers. It doesn't stand still long enough to involve the audience. Jean Lowerison SAN DIEGO METROPOLITAN "The result of pairing Aardman and DreamWorks is not quite as good as the best work either studio has done independently." Robert Roten LARAMIE MOVIE SCOPE "Like a mouse on a spinning wheel, it's a film that moves at a breakneck pace but ultimately goes nowhere." Nick Schager NICK SCHAGER FILM PROJECT "This movie lacks the cleverness of the Aardman classics, but it more than makes up for that with its nonstop action." Jeff Strickler MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE "Significantly more manic than the films that made the studio famous ... Fortunately, it's a great kind of manic." Andrew Wright THE STRANGER - SEATTLE

The Inside Story Those who were fans of "Wallace and Gromit The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit" will find Aardman Features third teaming with Dreamworks Animation a big departure from their traditional claymation productions. "Flushed Away" is a full blown animation and there were good reasons for making it that way. "We wanted to create a whole city, a whole world, and populate it with thousands of little rats walking around along canals instead of streets," says joint director Sam Fell. "With water, crowds, big scope, many sets, it seemed like CGI could really help us make that happen." In fact, water is notoriously difficult to recreate in stop-motion, and then there was the problem with the sets. They would have to be enormous to be in proportion with Roddy, Rita, and the rest of the "Flushed Away" characters. "The Kensington apartment, where the movie begins, would have had to have been full size," Fell says. "There just wouldn’t have been room in the studio to do it. And there wouldn't have been enough plasticine or clay in the world to do it." The production teams first thoughts were to retain their tried and true style and work in a lot of CG enhancements. "But when we looked at how much we would be doing on the computer," says Aardman co-founder and producer David Sproxton. "The extensive tunnels, the large sets, the water; we thought, Why not make the whole thing in CG?" And that's what they did. "Water is practically a character in this film, and it’s just the hardest thing to do in stop-frame animation," Aardman co-founder and producer Peter Lord says. "When we do water, it's normally little bits of cling film making a splash, or animating drips of glycerin trickling down the damp character. To have a boat bobbing about on a stream or tearing along at a super speed, through a river, chased by villains on egg whisks, it would have been impossible." Head of effects Yancy Lindquist notes, "We have flushing water. We have water running down pipes. We have frozen masses of water. Each of those requires a slightly different technique." In fact Lord says that "Flushed Away" remains a film that "could only have been made by a collaboration between Aardman and DreamWorks. I think "Flushed Away" brings a stillness to the CG art form. We believe in performance above all; the audience needs to believe in the characters. That often means watching what happens on the face when the character is almost still. That subtlety is what we do best. On the other hand, computer animation is great for big action. By putting the two together, we’ve got strong, believable characters and some truly spectacular action sequences." "There’s definitely a look to the design of an Aardman stop-motion film," producer David Sproxton asserts. "There’s a texture that's inherent in model work; the fingerprints on the clay, the wood grain, the plaster, the paint. You get a lot of texture simply because the sets and characters are constructed from real materials. That look is distinctly Aardman. I would say it’s our trademark." "We worked hard to translate the stop-frame style into the computer animated technique," Fell states. "We wanted to use the CG technique to capture the signature Aardman warmth, charm, and tactile feel. It’s the best of both worlds, really." Jeff Newitt, head of character animation, explained that the creators of "Flushed Away" found themselves freed by the new boundaries of CG, but constantly kept in mind the goal of matching the Aardman style. He says "some of the benefits of working in CG were immediately apparent. Consider The Toad. You have a massive bell-shaped body with very spindly legs. There’s so much weight to support and almost nothing to carry it. A character like that is an absolute nightmare to produce in stop-motion, but in CG, you don’t have to worry about gravity." Combining the two styles did create some challenges for the team. "When we started doing the rigs, they matched the Aardman puppets almost exactly," says lead character technical director Martin Costello. "But we found that some of the movements really didn’t work well in computer animation. So they evolved into something new, though there are still many similarities with traditional Aardman puppets, particularly the mouths and the brows." "Flushed Away" tells the tale of a pet rat named Roddy St James. He's living the high life in the upmarket London suburb of Kensington. Until he encounters a 'dirty little rat' named Sid. Roddy sums Sid up quickly and tries to flush him down the loo. Sid's no fool and Roddy finds himself "Flushed Away" into an underground world he never knew existed. This mini London introduces the audience to a number of colorful characters. "Flushed Away has some great comic characters," says Lord. "I think the villains in particular tend to steal the show a bit. We’ve taken great pains to try and get real performances and a story that people really care about. And it is a strong, exciting story, with lots of very big laughs." Bowers revealled, "Our hero, Roddy St James, is a privileged society mouse living a spoiled but solitary life in Kensington, an upscale London neighborhood. He thinks he has a wonderful life that involves a lot of play and very little responsibility. But he doesn’t have any family or real friends, so he has to make do with the toys and bits and pieces around the apartment." Until he's "Flushed Away". Australia's Hugh Jackman, star of the X-Men trilogy is the voice of Roddy St James. He says it's a bit of a shock for his character. "When Roddy is flushed down the loo, it’s not just like being a fish out of water, it’s like being on Mars," says Jackman. "He has never been outside his house before; he’s always well-dressed, always clean, and always alone. All of a sudden, he’s not only in a new world, he has to fend for himself among hordes of strangers." "Hugh is obviously a very talented dramatic actor, but he’s also got a lovely light comedy touch," notes Bowers. "Roddy became much more fun, really a nicer guy, when Hugh got involved." Playing opposite Roddy is Rita, an independent, street-smart skipper who lives in the moment and takes risks, but is also determined to support her enormous family. Roddy and Rita find themselves thrown together for the adventure of a lifetime. Rita is voiced by four time Academy Award nominee and co-star of "The Holiday", Kate Winslett. "Roddy’s given a tip that Rita is the only one brave enough to take him on the dangerous journey back to his home," Winslet explained. "And the two of them develop an unlikely friendship that sort of turns into an even more unlikely romance. It's certainly a case of opposites attracting." Fell adds a little more noting, "Rita and her dad make a living as scrap dealers on this boat called the Jammy Dodger. She’s a bit wild, a little bit chaotic, a little vulgar. She’s got some rough edges. But she’s also brave and adventurous. So she might get into some trouble, but she always manages to get herself out of it." Trouble is something Roddy is of course unfamiliar with. Then he meets 'The Toad'. "The Toad is a big, bombastic, overbearing, huge, green monster," says Bowers. "He used to be Prince Charles's pet, but he was replaced by a mouse and flushed down the royal toilet into the London sewers. So he harbors a deep-seated resentment towards all rodents, and it’s his plan to wipe them all out." Sir Ian McKellen provides the voice of 'The Toad'. "We asked him to bring all of his Shakespearean pomp to the role, because The Toad sees himself as sort of a sophisticated, suave, Noel Coward-type," says Bowers, "even though everyone else sees him as Jabba the Hut." "I never think of the characters I play as unpleasant, even if they're Richard III," says McKellen. "Toad’s had a hard life. He got flushed down the loo when Prince Charles handed over his favors to a new pet. Of course, Toad was disappointed, to put it mildly, but down below, he came into his own. He’s sentimental about his past, but he was turned by fate and he has a very strong nasty side as well." Jason Spencer-Galsworthy, who led the team that animated The Toad says of the character, "Toad is very baroque and broad in his gestures, and very fun to work withd. He’s the villain of the film, and the villain is often the character that has the most interesting nuances." And then there's Spike and Whitey, the Toad’s chief henchrats. According to Fell according to Fell they're, "really just a couple of idiots. They really want to be bad guys, but they’re just not any good at being bad." "Spike and Whitey are a double act. Spike is lethal, absolutely lethal," says Andy Serkis, "in his own mind. He’s actually soft as anything, and kind of a nervous, twitchy rat who still lives with his mum. And he compensates by bossing around Whitey, who is three times his size." Bill Nighy, who provides Whitey's voice explained that "Whitey is an albino ex-laboratory rat. He was involved in some quite sophisticated shampoo experiments involving overexposure to hallucinogenics, which may well have contributed to his lacking intellect. He’s a big lumping character who is really a perfectly nice chap with a difficult job." The Verdict "If you were a big fan of "Wallace & Gromit" (and who wasn't) you may find Aardman's latest effort, "Flushed Away", a little bit of a let down. Sure it's colorful. Yes, it is highly animated. But somehow and somewhere along the way they lost that charm, the genuine warmth that endears an audience to the characters they are seeing on the screen. That all important, vital factor which allows an audience to form an attachment, even when we know it's all make believe, has gone missing. While there are laughs throughout "Flushed Away", they aren't belly busting big. "Flushed Away" will probably prove a little too manic and a tad too forced for many adult cinemagoers. Best left for the kids, unless of course you are a true blue Aardman fan. 3 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "FLUSHED AWAY" stars .......
Hugh Jackman ["Van Helsing", "X-Men I, II & III", "The Prestige" and "Happy Feet"]; Kate Winslett ["Titanic", "Enigma", "Iris", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Holiday"]; Ian McKellen ["The Lord of the Rings I, II & III", "The Da Vinci Code" and "X-Men: The Last Stand"]; Jean Reno ["Mission: Impossible", "The Crimson Rivers ", "Ruby & Quentin" and "The Pink Panther"]; Andy Serkis ["The Lord of the Rings I, II & III", "Suddenly 30 ", "King Kong" and "The Prestige"], Shane Richie ["Dead Clean", "Distant Shadow", "Silent Soul" and TV'S "EastEnders"] and Bill Nighy ["I Capture the Castle", "Love Actually", "Underworld: Evolution" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest"] as Whitey.
"FLUSHED AWAY" was .......
directed by David Bowers ["Flushed Away"] and Sam Fell ["Pop", "Chump" and "Flushed Away"]; casting by Leslee Feldman ["Antz", Shrek 1 & 2", "The Road to El Dorado", and "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron"]; production design by David James ["Flushed Away"]; cinematography by Brad Blackbourn ["Flushed Away"] and Frank Passingham ["Chicken Run"]; original music by Harry Gregson-Williams ["Shrek 1 & 2", "Phone Booth", Veronica Guerin", "Man on Fire" and "Kingdom Of Heaven"] costume design by Jane Poole ["Over the Hedge"]. Run Time 84 minutes Rated G [AUST] Copyright ©2006 - DreamWorks Distribution LLC - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2006 - Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved