peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2007 01 02 FlushedAway

Flushed Away (2006)

/noise/movies | Link

I'm not altogether sure Aardman's claymation charm survives in this movie, though lovers of (the first) Shrek will probably be satisfied. The French get an incredibly raw deal here, with the exception of an unbelievably hilarious homage to Marcel Marceau. That was worth the six bucks cheapo-Tuesday admission price at The Ritz by itself.

The formula of jokes-for-the-adults / jokes-for-the-kids is slavishly followed, and given the sewer theme it leads to some pretty off-colour humour from the po-faced albino ex-lab rat muscle; apropos last night's curry he ruminates "My bum looks like the flag of Japan". Unlike Wallace and Gromit the invention count is rather low, and the characters feel more American than English. I almost wished the Gromit toy in the opening scene had got up and done something incredibly clever and disrespectful to the self-proclaimed playrat. I think Jen was less impressed overall with this piece of "family" holiday fluff.