Cinema - Flushed Away

How you feel about the film Flushed Away may well be determined by which side of the Atlantic you live on. Die hard Wallace and Gromit fans may fear that the Aardman output will have suffered through collaboration with Hollywood’s Dreamworks. (Note the absence of key Aardman player Nick Park). It won’t help that they’ve ditched the Plasticine models and gone for a digital upgrade. The result is a film in which the original aesthetic remains recognisable but not the same.

Whilst technological dexterity is exploited in long underwater sequences and loud screen-filling action, English critical audiences have met the ‘improvement’ with scepticism. So too the setting. Beginning in the large South Kensington home of pampered pet rat Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) the action moves to its makeshift parallel - a secret replica in the underbelly of the city’s sewers. (The rodent hero is ‘flushed away’ by a malicious rival). Within the piecemeal metropolis (in which Big Ben is constructed from an abandoned wall clock) is a society of tough rodents and amphibians with whom the pompous Roddy must learn to relate. But, say the English critics, the underbelly is not the only inauthentic representation. Americanisms dog the script and belie the nationality of the characters. Occasionally, though, the (‘English’) humour does manage to shine through, assisted by an able cast which includes Ian McKellen and Kate Winslet. ER