Flushed Away

Flushed Away
Flushed away poster
Directed by	David Bowers Sam Fell
Written by	Dick Clement Ian La Frenais
Starring	Hugh Jackman Kate Winslet Andy Serkis
Music by	Harry Gregson Williams
Distributed by	DreamWorks Animation Aardman Animation Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	November 3 2006 (USA) December 1 2006 (UK)
IMDb profile

Flushed Away is an animated film directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell. It is a co-production between Aardman Animations and DreamWorks Animation, and is Aardman's first completely computer-animated feature as opposed to the usual stop-motion. The film stars the voice talents of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, Ian McKellen, Simon Callow, Shane Richie, Geoffrey Palmer and Jean Reno. The screenplay was written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. The film was released in movie theatres on November 3, 2006, and is distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is the last film in Aardman and DreamWorks' distribution and production deal due to "creative differences".^[1] The film was rated PG by the MPAA for crude humor and some language.

Main cast

• Hugh Jackman: Roddy St. James, the main character
• Kate Winslet: Rita, supporting character
• Andy Serkis: Spike, villain
• Bill Nighy: Whitey, villain
• Ian McKellen: The Toad, villain
• Simon Callow: Gilbert, supporting character
• Shane Richie: Sid, supporting character
• Geoffrey Palmer: Sullivan, Supporting
• Jean Reno: Le Frog — featured too in the French version
• Tom Kenny: Kan Tony the Firefly
• Kathy Burke: Rita's Mum
• David Suchet: Rita's Dad
• Miriam Margolyes: Rita's Grandma
• Alexz Johnson: Brooke, supporting character

Other voices —

• Rachel Rawlinson: Tabitha
• Susan Duerden: Mother
• Miles Richardson: Father
• John Motson: The Football commentator
• Douglas Weston: Newspaper Seller

…

• and David Bowers himself as the Goldfish, Fly, Shocky, Henchfrog #1 and Tadpole

Synopsis

Roddy, also known as Roddy St. James, is a decidedly upper-crust pet rat who makes his home in a posh Kensington flat. When a common sewer rat named Sid comes spewing out of the sink and decides he’s hit the jackpot, Roddy schemes to rid himself of the pest by luring him into the "jacuzzi", which is actually the toilet bowl. Sid may be an ignorant slob, but being a sewer rat, he’s no fool when it comes to knowing a loo. He plays along and instead pushes Roddy in and flushes him away into the bustling underground city of rats in the drains of London. 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 at all initially, but ends up taking him along as the villainous Toad sends his hench-rats Spike and Whitey after her because she had stolen back her father's prized jewel a long time ago. Toad—who royally despises all rodents—wants them iced…literally. He fails in this mission but it does not matter to him as Rita has taken his uniquely-designed electric cable in their successful bid to escape. Rita uses the cable as a belt but does not know its significant value to the Toad who needs it to operate the Floodgates so as to drown all the mice living in the "city" before he can set up home of millions of his own tadpole kids.

After all the trouble of outwitting Toad and his hench-rats, Roddy finds that the ruby is a fake and breaks it in order to prove to Rita. She becomes upset but consoles herself after Roddy promises that if she gets him back home, he will reward her with a real ruby. She goes back to visit her family before setting off and they take to Roddy warmly except for her.

After another failed attempt by Spike and Whitey to capture Roddy and Rita, the Toad has no choice but to send to France for his cousin--the mercenary, Le Frog. He brings along his hench-frogs to finish the duo off and get the belt. He fails after Rita grabs it away from him as she and Roddy parachute their way out of the sewer and land safely inside the latter's mansion.

Roddy keeps his promise and even rewards Rita with an additional emerald. She believes that he has friends and relatives at home until she sees his cage and realises that he is a pet. Sid who still runs amok at Roddy's home, is introduced to Rita as "Rupert" - Roddy's non-existent brother. Unfortunately for Roddy, Sid and Rita know each personally. She leaves him to get back to the sewers.

In a confrontation with Sid who tells him that he is holding his bladder until half-time as he does not want to miss the World Cup finals- Roddy realises the belt's value to the Toad when he recollects a prophetic Rat telling him that the floodgates won't hold after half-time because humans will only use the toilets during that break and flush their loos collectively. He resolves to leaving the mansion to Sid while he rescues Rita. Roddy saves the day when he freezes the wave before it is able to wash out the rats who are too engrossed watching the World Cup.

He helps Rita and her family build a Jammy Dodger II and sets off with her and the entire brood to start their lives anew.

As the credits start, it turns out that Roddy left his human home at the best time as Sid is soon faced with a surprise brought by the little girl who used to take care of Roddy - a cat!

Reaction

Critical response

Flushed Away acquired 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. It also received a rating of 7.0/10 on IMDB (which, notably, is lower than the ratings acquired by Aardman's two previous films).

Box Office performance

United States: $48,803,000

Non-US: $6,222,555

Worldwide total: $55,025,555^[2]

Budget: $149,000,000 ($90,000,000 production, $30,000,000 prints and advertising) ^[3]

References to other films or places

• As Roddy is choosing his suit at the start of the movie, one of the suits he pulls out is the clothing of Wallace from Wallace and Gromit. Another outfit is that of Wolverine from the X-Men comic. Hugh Jackman, who voices Roddy, played Wolverine in the X-Men movies.
• In a scene were Roddy is in his home with Rita, an Alex the Lion plush lies in the background which refers to DreamWorks' Madagascar.
• In a scene where Roddy and Rita are about to be frozen, one of the frozen rats is dressed up like the Star Wars character Han Solo.
• I Know What You Did Last Summer is spoofed when a mouse in a raincoat and a hook hand appears giving Roddy advice.
• Roddy meets a goldfish while he is in the water. The fish says "Have you seen my dad?", referencing the Disney-Pixar movie Finding Nemo.
• Roddy bumping into a match-breather rat is a reference to Aladdin.
• Le Frog's entrance spoofs Spider-Man's entrance altogether.
• Ratropolis is a version of London.
• Roddy spoofs the opening sequence of nearly all James Bond films during the opening sequence of the movie. The movie he watches as well, titled "Never Die Tomorrow" is an obvious parody of Bond films.
• As Roddy and Rita travel down the sewer in the Jammy Dodger, they almost collide with a couple of rats with a thick southern accent. They loop around the top of the sewer to avoid them. A similar stunt is performed in the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun, which features a southern sheriff and a car performing a flip as it jumps a bridge.
• The spaghetti kiss/swallow between the two slugs, mimics a famous scene from Lady and the Tramp.
• When Roddy first enters Ratropolis during the zoom out an old lady can be seen and heard saying "Feed the flies, tuppence a bag!" a clear reference to Mary Poppins.
• Also during Roddy's arrival, he flies through the air in a blanket and underwear and the rats down below call out, "Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is that guy wearing my underpants?" teasing the Superman sequence.
• The phrase "To the Ratmobile!" is a parody of the "To the Batmobile" from the Batman series starring Adam West. The image of the two rats heads appearing in a swirl is also a play on the show.
• Behind the sink in Rita's family home, a cockroach reads the French translation of "Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, a surreal tale about a man turned into an unspecified type of vermin, which is, due to a quirk of translation, often assumed to be a cockroach.
• Rex the Runt, another Aardman Animations character, appears on a t-shirt worn by a bystander at the end of the film.
• Le Frog, the hit man hired by The Toad might be a nod to Jean Reno's eponymous role in the 1994 film Léon: The Professional.
• During the World Cup Final sequence, a rat with a Texas accent and ten gallon hat asks where the helmets and quarterbacks are, before finally stating that "these Brits don't know how to play football!" This is a reference to the stereotyped lack of American interest in the World Cup.
• As the Jammy Dodger sinks, its motorised arm waves goodbye to Rita and Roddy in an echo of the destruction of the T800 at the end of Terminator 2.
• A DVD of Chicken Run can be seen when Roddy browses through the movies on a shelf.
• Behind the plush bunny in Roddy's room, on the book shelf, is the 'Cracking Animation' book, featuring a picture of Wallace and Gromit on the spine. This book is a real book by Aardman teaching stop motion techniques.
• Gromit from Wallace and Gromit makes an appearance in this movie as a plush. Alex the lion (Madagascar) and some of the rabbits (Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit) also can be seen as plushies.

Trivia

• The main reason why Flushed Away is computer animated is because of the complexity of the water. Traditionally, Aardman have used stop-motion for their animated features, but it would have been too expensive to composite the shots including water, and since the story involves a lot of it, they chose to go all CGI^[4]. The characters still resemble Aardman's classic plasticine stop-motion characters, as the designs were taken straight from the original plasticine models.
• The film's working title was Ratropolis, but the title changed it because of its similarity to the as-yet-unreleased Ratatouille, from Disney-Pixar.
• This 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 was made), and were told to modernize the concept. By the time the writer had done this, the project was temporarily shelved to make way for the production of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and finally came out after Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
• Flushed Away is also the first DreamWorks animated film to have the Paramount Pictures logo displayed on its poster (the poster for Over the Hedge merely had the notice "Distributed by Paramount Pictures Corporation", though the Paramount logo did appear at the end of the film).
• Hugh Jackman also will star in another November 2006 animated release, Happy Feet. In both, he sings. Here, he sings the song "Ice Cold Rita" and a Tom Jones song while dancing on the table for Rita's family.
• At one point, Roddy states "Hey, England's in the final of the World Cup. Anything is possible." During the ending sequence however, the newspaper states that England lost during the penalty shoot-out. Incidentially, England were knocked out in the actual 2006 World Cup on penalty shoot-out. However they lost to Portugal during the Quarter-finals instead of Germany in the final.
• The half-time score of England 4 Germany 2 was the final score after extra-time in the 1966 World Cup Final, also featuring England and Germany.
• Sid is wearing a pair of upside-down underpants under his jacket.
• Ladykiller is refering to the drink.

See also

• List of films with similar themes and release dates

References

External links

• Flushed Away Official Website
• Flushed Away at Keyframe - the Animation Resource
• Flushed Away at the Internet Movie Database
• Mansized Flushed Away review

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