Random Movie Review - Flushed Away

As you all know, I do enjoy Aardman's work. It never fails to amaze me on how well they do. But saying that, it doesn't mean that their work is flawless. I mean I've already mentioned the liar revealed thing in Chicken Run and while I may have not said it, I do find Curse of the Were-Rabbit even though it is an all time favourite film of mine, it can be very Americanised and I don't like it when studios interfere with film making because it just doesn't make a good film. Wallace & Gromit are great just the way they are and they don't need to be Americanised. So based on that, Aardman for their third feature film, decided to do something they have never done before, a full on CGI film. Now there has been a lot of talk as to why they chose this path and looking it up, it had nothing to do with their warehouse of work being lost due to a fire. Its just a case of that the kind of stop motion films that they do, wouldn't work well with water (at least full on water anyway) as it would destroy the plasticine that are used in their stop motion films. Also having CGI to make up the water in a film like this, would have proved to be too expensive. So with that, we have Flushed Away. Aardman's first CGI film and the last as part of their contract with DreamWorks due to creative differences. Anyway, let's review it:

So our story revolves around an upper class pet rat who lives with his owners in Kensington called Roddy (voiced by the live action Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman). His owners go away on holiday leaving him to have the house to himself. All seems well until a rat by the name of Sid (voiced by regular EastEnders star and comedian, Shane Richie) who much to the displeasure of Roddy, decides to take residence in his house, especially considering its the World Cup final (I may not be a football fan as such, but we Brits do love our football) is taking place very soon. Roddy is able to lure Sid into his jacuzzi (which in fact is a toilet), but Sid is able to not be fooled by his tricks and pushes Roddy in and as the film title implies, he gets flushed away. Entering the sewer which resembles London if all the buildings were made of junk, Roddy must find a way back home, but when he ends up in the affairs of a female rat and a frog who loves the Royal Family, he may have a change of heart.

The thing about this film is that it is very British. It shows what we British like such as Football, the Royal Family and the cockney accent among other things and for a film released globally, its a good way to have the world be introduced to us and tell people who have made fun of us, that we are not as posh, good mannered or uptight as you may think. Aside from those things, as Aardman's first CGI film, its not perfect and kind of feels very cheap, but it does manage to keep the charm and the likeness of their previous work which is good. I'd say the only criticism that I have is that its not as good as their previous work in the sense that when you do something you've never done before, things may not work out the way you've wanted it to go and its the case here with the cheap CGI. Otherwise, its an alright film nevertheless. 7/10