Dick Clement

Occupation

Filmmaker

Flushed Away Review

By Anne Gilbert

Good

As nice as it can be to see movies at press screenings -- nestled in big comfy chairs, away from the masses and ticket prices -- there were benefits to watching Flushed Away in a big ol' auditorium filled to the brim with the 10-and-under crowd. It validated that my finding the movie bland and inspiring didn't just mean I'm outside key demographics. Those kids? They weren't laughing a whole lot either.

Flushed Away is a prototypical anthropomorphic-fish-out-of-water tale, about a pampered pet rat named Roddy St. James (voiced by Hugh Jackman) who gets accidentally flushed down the toilet of his owners' posh Kensington flat and ends up out of his element in a rat-sized version of London down in the sewers. His attempts to make his way back up top get him mixed up with a sassy lass, Rita (Kate Winslet), who is on the run from a local crime boss and his thugs. Of course, because this is an animated family film, the boss is an ill-tempered toad and one of the henchmen is an albino former lab rat, but the ideas are universal.

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