Movie Type: Family-Oriented Adventure, Family-Oriented Comedy
Themes: Finding a Way Back Home
Main Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Bill Nighy
Release Year: 2006
Country: UK/US
Run Time: 84 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
A previously pampered society mouse must fight his way back to the comforts of Kensington after he is sent spiraling into an underground world filled with scavenger rats and villainous toads in a fun-filled family adventure produced by DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Features and featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, and Jean Reno. Roddy (Jackman) was living the high life when he first met Sid the sewer rat (Shane Richie), but that's all about to change when Sid decides to send the hapless mouse down the pipes and stealthily take his place in the lap of luxury. Though the bustling sewer city of Ratropolis isn't without its fair share of kind citizens, it is certainly no place for a pampered mouse with a taste for life's finer things. Upon making the acquaintance of scavenger rat Rita (Winslet), Roddy is certain that the pair can navigate their way back to the surface in Rita's trusty boat, the Jammy Dodger, but Rita's help doesn't come cheap, and the nefarious Toad (McKellen) is determined to rid Ratropolis of all things rodent. When Toad's hapless hench-rats Spike (Andy Serkis) and Whitey (Bill Nighy) fail to achieve acceptable results, the green meanie is forced to call in the cavalry in the form of legendary French mercenary Le Frog (Reno) to get the job done. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Review
It's no surprise you won't find Nick Park's name anywhere on Flushed Away, other than a "special thanks" in the closing credits. Anyone acquainted with Park's beloved ambassadors, Wallace and Gromit, will recognize the London sewer rats in Flushed Away as descendents of that animation style. But when these characters -- with their familiar big eyes and smiling teeth -- are created digitally, rather than using Park's trademark stop-motion animation, it feels like a cheat. Wallace and Gromit were hand-crafted labors of love, designed as they were for the ease of repositioning their clay features. Mimicking them digitally feels like Dreamworks' cold attempt to reel viewers in through familiarity. No doubt Park would have also written a much more understated script than the breathless, manic effort churned out by the myriad of scribes given screenplay and story credits here. While having rats as main characters would not end up being a problem for Pixar's Ratatouille, it doesn't work so well on this excursion -- in part due to the whole icky toilet-flushing concept, but mostly because the rats aren't part of any real London a person can relate to. In some ways they do interact with the discarded refuse of a modern society, such as using a plastic bag as a parachute. But because they wear little tiny rat clothes, and have little tiny rat forks and rat spoons, the illusion of reality is shattered -- leaving Flushed Away as full-on kiddie entertainment, lacking the cleverness an adult requires. It doesn't help that Hugh Jackman's Roddy and Kate Winslet's Rita are being chased by a tiresome bunch of Cockney-accented rat hoodlums, who seem better suited to a Guy Ritchie movie. Just because you have a faster animation process at your disposal, doesn't mean you need to shortchange writing a story with heart. ~ All Movie Guide
Andy Serkis - Spike; Shane Richie - Sid; Kathy Burke - Rita's Mum; David Suchet - Rita's Dad; Miriam Margolyes - Rita's Grandma; Rachel Rawlinson - Tabitha; Susan Duerden - Mother; Miles Richardson - Father; John Motson - Football Commentator; Douglas Weston - Newspaper Seller; Roger Blake - Balloon Seller; Christopher Fairbank - Passerby; Paul Shardlow - Pegleg; Conrad Vemon - Take Out; Jonathan Kydd - Barnacle; Newell Alexander - Tex; Susan Fitzer - Edna; Joshua Silk - Fergus; Meredith Wells - Rita's Little Sister; Ashleigh-Louis Elliot - Rita's Sister 2; Ashleigh Ludwig - Rita's Sister 3; Christopher Knights - Market Trader; Emma Tate - Passerby 2; Tom McGrath - Artist; Sam Fell - Fanseller; David Bowers - Tadpole; Geoffrey Palmer; Simon Callow
Credit
Pierre-Olivier Vincent - Art Director, Scott Wills - Art Director, Masahito Yoshioka - Animator, Lionel Gallat - Animator, Jakob Hjort Jensen - Animator, Fabrice Joubert - Animator, Fabio Lignini - Animator, Simon Otto - Animator, Christian A. Hatfield - Animator, Louis Flores - Animator, Allen Ruilova - Animator, Jason Spencer-Galsworthy - Animator, Andre LeBlanc - Animator, Tim Keenan - Animator, Dave Tidgwell - Animator, Stephen Wood - Animator, Alan Cheney - Animator, Matthew Head - Animator, Jason Mayer - Animator, Mark Williams - Animator, Priscilla John - Casting, Leslee Feldman - Casting, Maryann Garger - Co-producer, Jane Poole - Costume Designer, David Bowers - Director, Sam Fell - Director, John H. Venzon - Editor, Eric Dapkewicz - Editor, Mark Edwards - Lighting, Mark Fattibene - Lighting, Eric Adrian Fernandes - Lighting, Michael McNeill - Lighting, Bert Poole - Lighting, Mark Wendell - Lighting, Harry Gregson-Williams - Composer (Music Score), David A.S. James - Production Designer, Mark Tarbox - Production Manager, David Sproxton - Producer, Peter Lord - Producer, Cecil Kramer - Producer, Carlos Sotolongo - Recording, Larry Winer - Recording, David Gritzman - Recording, Matthew Roberts - Recording, Olivia Mole - Set Designer, Paul Westacott - Set Designer, Yancy Lindquist - Special Effects, Andy Nelson - Sound Mixer, James Bolt - Sound Mixer, Dick Clement - Screen Story, Ian La Frenais - Screen Story, Peter Lord - Screen Story, Sam Fell - Screen Story, Dick Clement - Screenwriter, William Davies - Screenwriter, Ian La Frenais - Screenwriter, Joe Keenan - Screenwriter, Christopher Lloyd - Screenwriter, Chris Lloyd - Screenwriter, Wendy Rogers - Visual Effects Supervisor, Ronn Brown - Additional Music, David Cauthery - Additional Music, Mark Orser McGuire - Technical Director, Kathy Zielinski - Animation Producer, Loyd Price - Animation Producer, Manuel Almela - Animation Producer, Arnaud Berthier - Animation Producer, Steve Horrocks - Animation Producer, Philippe Le Brun - Animation Producer, MaryAnn Malcomb - Animation Producer, Claire Morrissey - Animation Producer, Andrea Simonti - Animation Producer, Scott Wright - Animation Producer, Michelle Cowart - Animation Producer, Greg Whittaker - Animation Producer, Steve Cunningham - Animation Producer, Aaron Kirby - Animation Producer, Yoshimichi Tamura - Animation Producer, Seamus Malone - Animation Producer, Jeremy Bernstein - Animation Producer, Line Korsgaard Andersen - Animation Producer, Manuel Aparicio - Animation Producer, Scott Claus - Animation Producer, Martin P. Hopkins - Animation Producer, Gabe Hordos - Animation Producer, Yair Kantor - Animation Producer, Kevin MacLean - Animation Producer, Gabriele Pennacchioli - Animation Producer, Jim Van der Keyl - Animation Producer, Alexis Wanneroy - Animation Producer, Dug Calder - Animation Producer, Ian Whitlock - Animation Producer, Christopher Lee Capel - Animation Producer, Donnachada Daly - Animation Producer, Eric Deuel - Animation Producer, Willy Harber - Animation Producer, Chris M. Kirschbaum - Animation Producer, Benjie Rush - Animation Producer, David Weatherly - Animation Producer, Chris Chua - Animation Producer, David Coucharière - Animation Producer, Ken Cole Kim - Animation Producer, James Lopez - Animation Producer, Wee Brian McGrath - Animation Producer, Gregory Perler - Associate Editor, Marcus Taylor - Associate Editor, Fred de Bradeny - Production Supervisor, Ameake Owens - Production Supervisor, Spencer Filichia - Production Supervisor, Pilar M. Flynn - Production Supervisor, Brian Behling - Production Supervisor, Matt Pomeroy - Production Supervisor, Maude Lewis - Production Supervisor, Kay Sasatomi - Production Supervisor, Fred Herman - Production Supervisor, Kim Mackey - Production Supervisor, Darci Zalvin - Production Supervisor, Mike Kershner - Production Supervisor, Deven Nobel LeTendre - Production Supervisor, Stacey Ernst - Production Supervisor, Deven Riley LeTendre - Production Supervisor, Marny Nahrwold - Production Supervisor, Richard L. Anderson - Supervising Sound Editor, Thomas Jones - Supervising Sound Editor, Matthew Burke - Production Accountant, Matthew Teevan - Supervising Production Coordinator, Patrick Mate - Character Design, Mike Salter - Character Design, Ariandy Chandra - Title Design, Robert King - Chorus Master, Andrew Birch - Post Production Manager, Eric Dapkewicz - Co-Editor
Roddy, a rat from the classy side of town, is presented with a whole lot of trouble as he swirls to the unfamiliar world of the London sewers in Flushed Away. In an attempt to save Ratropolis and get back home, Roddy teams up with Rita and her makeshift boat named the Jammy Dodger for a trip through such environments as Roddy's Kensington apartment, Arachne's Lair, Ratropolis, and more to confront and defeat the evil Toad. Armed with unlimited lives and a variety of weapons including Roddy's "dashing fence attack," Rita's "bouncing bungee," and Jammy Dodger's "crayon crossbow," the group must avoid floating debris and defeat enemies while locating and collecting power-ups including Rita's Ruby, the fire extinguisher, and the air cannon among others. Gamers can play through the single-player story mode, or go against a friend in such mini-games as "Rat Traps & Crayons" and "Pathfinder."
~ Gracie Leach, All Game Guide
Production Credits
Company 1: DreamWorks Animation/Aardman Animation; DreamWorks Animation/Aardman Animation: Karan Barnash, David Bowers, Rachael Carpenter, Jennifer Caruso, Sean Clarke, Paul Elliott, Sam Fell, Andrea Frechette, Anne Globe, Rene Harnois, Jess Houston, Peter Lord, Meaghan Nix, Rick Rekedal; Company 2: Monkey Bar Games; President: Eric Peterson; Director of Engineering: Wayne Harvey; Producer: Mike Pearson; Art Director: Ben Lichius; Game Designer: Jeff Friedlander; Lead Level Designer: Bryan West; Lead Gameplay Programmer: Tim Randall; Artist: Hoover Abejero, Jonathan Bishop, Ed Brennan, Paul Buda, Adam Capps, Ben Cloward, Lianne Cruz, Manuel Gomez, Geoff Hudson, Brian Ingersoll, Rob Maxwell, Josh Piszczek; Engine Programmer: Douglas Cox, Luke Hodorowicz, Amilcar Ubiera; Gameplay Programmer: Allan Campbell, Ben Payne; Level Designer: Jean-Paul Berard, Jennifer Canada, Brett Freese; Sound Designer: Mark Reis; VO Script Writer: Dave Ellis, Jeff Friedlander; HR Administrator: Ann Tyler-Sebring; Associate Producer: James Doss; Production Assistant: Jessica Harper; Additional Team Member: Adam Cogan, Alden Filion, Rodney W. Harper, John Hesch, Hong Leung, Kevin Mabie, Jim Matheson, Scott Marshall, Michael Nelson, Jim Richardson, Pierre Roux, Ed Rowe, Michael Richey, Clarence Simpson, Abraham Valdez; Contracted Artist, Programmer and QA: Mark Jarman, John O'Neill, Brandon Murray, Scott Sprange; Game Music Produced and Composed By: Rod Abernethy, Jason Graves; Company 3: Southlogic Studios; Art Director: Ricardo Coimbra Da Rocha; Lead Texture Artist: Felipe Pulcinelli Da Jornada; Lead Modeling Artist: Nereu Bavaresco Felzke; Object and Environment Modeling and Texturing: Luiz Henrique Lopes Pellizari, Gerson Klein, Marcos Vinícius Avila De Andrade, Vitor Eduardo Arusievicz, Alessandro Peixoto De Lima, Marcell Mota, Henrique Schlatter Manfroi, Dorothy Silveira Ballarini; Art QA: Andrey Michael Lopes Aires; Production Manager: Christopher Manager; Voice Talent: Carlos Alazraqui, Leigh Allyn Baker, Steve Blum, Jim Connor, Sean Donnellan, Susan Duerdan, Drew Massey, Oliver Muirhead, Nolan North, David Shaugnessy, Fred Tatasciore, Nick Tate, Zachary Throne, Tasia Valenza; Dialogue Casting/Direction: Chris Borders; Company 4: D3Publisher Of America Inc.; Producer: Brian Etheridge; Senior Producer: Steve Baldoni; Manager of Support Services: Michael Greene; Senior Tester: Jeff Braun, Nicholas E. Spero; Tester: Kyle Bastian, Elise Burgess, Joshua Farrell, John Halfhill, Jeremy Helton, Drew Johnson, Michael Koelsch II, Justin W. McCabe, David Nguyen, Geoff Schoenthal, Thomas J. Beddow, Wli Collins, Joe Fletcher, Ken Koontz, Jeramy Layton, Juan F. Mireles, Jeremy Schleining, Derek Sheppard, Tanner Smith, DeLano Thornton, Paul Vateriaus, Nathanael Wagers, Zack "Zy" Ward, Mark Webster, Joshua Widman; General Office Manager: Jeremy S. Barnes; Vice President of Product Development: Brian Christian; Business and Product Development Coordinator: Keri Lingley; Product Development Coordinator/Translator: Nana Suzuki; Vice President of Marketing: Allison Quirion; Marketing Manager: Tim Blair; Publicity Manager: Tamara Sanderson; Vice President of Sales & Operations: Kim Motika; Associate Operations Manager: Donna Marr; Vice President of Licensing/Business Development: Careen Yapp; Associate Licensing Manager: Adeline Petros; Director Finance/Administrative/Global Planning: Hidetaka Tachibana; Executive Vice President/COO: Yoji Takenaka; President and CEO: Yuji Ito; Company 5: Technicolor Interactive Services; Dialogue Recording Engineer: David Walsh; Dialogue Editor: Lydian Tone, Morgan Gerhard, David Fisk; Director-localization: Rafael López; Localization Manager: Ivan Glaze; Senior Project Manager: Pam Ferdinand
Roddy St. James is a decidedly upper crust pet rat who makes his home in a posh Kensingtonflat. When a common sewer rat named Sid comes spewing out of the sink and decides to stay, especially as England are playing Germany in the FIFA World Cup final, Roddy schemes to get rid of Sid by luring him into the "jacuzzi", which is actually the toilet bowl. Sid may be an ignorant slob, but being a sewer rat, he knows his plumbing. He plays along and instead pushes Roddy in and flushes him away into the sewer.
There, Roddy meets Rita Malone, an enterprising scavenger rat who works the drains in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger. Rita does not like Roddy initially, but ends up taking him along as The Toad sends his henchmen, Spike and Whitey, after her because she had stolen back her father's prized jewel a long time ago. The Toad despises all rodents to the point of hateful obsession, blaming rats for his fall from grace (he was once Prince Charles' pet). He decides to have them frozen with liquid nitrogen. However, The Toad's plan fails. Worse, during their escape, Rita takes a unique electrical cable. The cable is required to control the Floodgates. The Toad's evil plan is to open the gates during halftime of the World Cup, drowning the rats and their underground city in sewage. He can then use the depopulated city as a home for millions of his own tadpole offspring.
Roddy (right) and Rita (left) arguing over the ruby.
Roddy finds that the ruby is a fake and breaks it in front of Rita, enraging her, for she can now not get the money she needs for her large family. Roddy offers her a real ruby if she takes him back to Kensington. Accepting the offer, the pair first stop to visit her family before setting off. During Roddy's stay, he overhears a conversation that causes him to think that Rita had double-crossed him, so he steals the Jammy Dodger. When Rita catches up to him, he is able to clear up the misunderstanding.
The pair evade Spike and Whitey pursuing in a remote-controlled toy boat, with Thimblenose Ted and others on eggbeater jet skis. During this scene, Roddy and Rita share a quick love moment. Incensed at his minions’ repeated failures, The Toad sends to France for his cousin; an infamous, if somewhat laid back, mercenary known as Le Frog. Le Frog and his subordinates intercept the duo and retrieve the cable, but Roddy and Rita use a plastic bag to lift themselves out of the sewer (snatching away the cable during the ascent) and get Roddy home, though the Jammy Dodger has to be sacrificed.
Back home, Roddy pays Rita the promised ruby and an emerald, then proceeds to show her around his house. She at first believes he has family in the home, but noticing his cage, she realizes he's a pet. Roddy tries to pass Sid off as his brother, but Sid and Rita know each other. Rita tries to persuade Roddy to come with her, but he is too proud to admit that he is lonely. By now, they have fallen in love but have not told each other their feelings. She departs, both of them broken-hearted, but is soon captured by The Toad.
Talking to Sid about half-time, Roddy pieces together The Toad's plan. He gives Sid his cushy position and has Sid flush him back to the sewers to find Rita and save the city. Together, they defeat The Toad and freeze the wave of sewage generated by the flushing of countless toilets during the FIFA World Cup half-time with liquid nitrogen before it drowns the entire rat population.
Rita and Roddy build the Jammy Dodger Mark Two and set off in her with Rita's entire brood. A newspaper article reveals England had lost on penalties. Rita and Roddy become boyfriend and girlfriend. Later while the credits start, Roddy's former owner comes back with a new pet (a cat), which frightens Sid.
Characters
The characters in the film are all rats, frogs, (musical) slugs, and toads with an exception of some partially "unseen" humans.
Roddy St. James (voiced by Hugh Jackman) An aristocratic rat who is flushed away to the sewers and sees life in new eyes. He suffers from sea sickness while going along the sewer canals in the Jammy Dodger
Rita Malone (Kate Winslet) A strong female, Rita is part of a family of 36 brothers and sisters. She has flaming red hair and green emerald eyes. She also suffers from hay-fever and sneezes frequently when near pollen.
Whitey (Bill Nighy) - the less-intelligent of The Toad's right hand rats. Whitey, despite his hulking size, is actually very gentle and polite, even to those he is supposed to be intimidating and is never seen engaging in any actual violence.
Spike (Andy Serkis) - the smarter of The Toad's top two henchmen, Spike is characterised by a manic enthusiasm for villainy, despite being too stupid to be genuinely evil.
The film's original concept involved pirates, and was pitched to DreamWorks soon after the release of Chicken Run in 2000. However, Aardman were told that there was no market for pirate films (this was before Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released to great success in 2003), and were told to modernise the concept. By the time the rewrite was done, the project had to be postponed to make way for the production of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit; it was finally released after not only the original Pirates of the Caribbean, but also its first sequel.
The film's working title was Ratropolis, but it was changed due to its similarity to Disney-Pixar's Ratatouille. In Spain, the movie was released as Ratónpolis (ratón is Spanish for "mouse"). The Latin-American title for the film was Lo que el agua se llevó ("Gone with the Water"), a pun on Gone with the Wind.
Traditionally, Aardman have used stop-motion for their animated features, but it is very complex to render water with this technique, and using real water can damage plasticine models. It would have been very expensive to composite CGI into shots that include water, of which there are many in the movie, so they chose to make Flushed Away their first all-CGI production.[2] The characters still resemble Aardman's classic characters, as the designs were taken straight from the original plasticine models. Several techniques were employed to give the impression of stop-motion animation, such as using replacement mouths for lip-synch rather than the interpolation typically seen in computer animation.
The film underwent many changes and versions, resulting in an inflated budget. For example, Roddy originally had two hamster manservants named Gilbert and Sullivan that were featured heavily in early trailers.
This is the second of two Aardman-produced films released by Dreamworks. Aardman's experience with Dreamworks during the making of the film led to a split between the two studios.[3]
DVD release
Flushed Away was released on DVD February 20, 2007. It included behind the scenes, deleted info, Jammy Dodger videos and all new slug songs. It was released in the UK on April 2, 2007, where it was packaged with a plasticine 'Slug Farm' kit.[4]
Flushed Away collected $64,488,856 in the United States, which was below the average of other CGI films from Dreamworks Animation, but a healthy $111,814,663 from international markets for a worldwide total of $176,319,242.
