HOME |
DINING |
MOVIES |
LIVE SHOWS |
ARTS |
UPCOMING EVENTS
ARCHIVES |
ABOUT |
ADVERTISE |
CONTACT |
DISTRIBUTION
entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
<< Seen, Heard, Noted & Quoted
|
Main
|
Tomorrow Mourning...
>>
|
|
|
by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
B+ Rated PG 86 min
The wonderfully droll British animation team of David Bowers and Sam Fell conjured up this hilarious rodent adventure. The rat-fried caper features upperclass rat, Roddy (Hugh Jackman) who is flushed down the toilet by an interloper –a denizen of the sewer-- to the lower class rat kingdom of Ratropolis. There Roddy meets a host of unsavory toads, singing slugs, and Rita (Kate Winslet). She is a free spirit scavenger who reluctantly tries to help Roddy to get back home “up there” with her trusty boat, the Jammy Dodger.
Rita’s altruist contribution to Roddy’s well being is dependent on him paying her for her trouble. But Roddy’s bumbling ways grow on Rita and she begins to like this uppity rodent from the suburbs up in the human world. But he’ll have to pull his weight aboard the Dodger
Enter the bulbous Toad (Ian McKellen) who is planning to rid the underworld of rats. The Toad dispatches his two henchmen a.k.a. hench-rats Whitey and Spike (Bill Nighy & Andy Serks) to ice Roddy and Rita, who first stole the Toad’s ruby, (a fake) and then steal his cable that connects the power plant to the grid that runs Ratropolis. Toad would be happy to rename the underground sewer world, Frogropolis after he gets rid of the rascally rodents.
Ah yes, Roddy’s trip to the human world is fraught with danger. Only Rita–a spunky broad–can save Roddy from himself. Roddy is portrayed as a whiny wimp who lacks courage and is essentially spineless. On the other hand, Rita is a skilled seafarer who knows how to shake the pursuing French frogs. But those darn slugs keep popping up and singing silly songs at the weirdest times. It’s like the slugs are living in a Broadway musical fantasy world, oblivious to the danger all around them.
Clearly, there is a romance developing between Roddy and Rita, (only in the context of the cartoon universe) but it has no chance to bloom because Rita is helming her boat, which is being chased by the French frogs, hell bent to take them out. Jackman’s characterization of Roddy makes him an unlikely love interest for Rita, but stranger romances have developed between polar opposites.
Ian McAllen gives Toad a flamboyant presence. He is a frog of both worlds, and was kept as a pet in a wealthy suburb. So he knows the strange ways of the upper world, where a frog or rat can end up in palatial splendor. However, Toad has visions of grandeur and wants to be king of the underworld, sans those pesky rats.
Jean Reno voiced the Toad’s effervescent French cousin, Le Frog, who wages war by having a five-hour dinner break before pursuing Roddy and Rita, who have found a respite from their journey to the upper level of being. Bowers and Fell’s satirize every stereotype of British and French eccentricities with these endearing and funny creatures. The animation has a simulated“stop action” claymation tone generated by CGI to give it that smooth look of the rat and frog caricatures.
Bowers and Fell’s Flushed Away is funny and wildly entertaining, which is the goal of any animated film. The artful creation of the sewer underworld makes this normally dark realm come alive with boats, commerce, night life and everything one would expect from a major city inhabited by rats, frogs, and those annoying slugs, who keep singing sappy songs at inopportune times.
Roddy and Rita’s adventure take them far and wide as they face many dangers on the way to Roddy’s lonely home where he lived in a cage. But to him, it was a mansion inside a mansion. That rat had it made!
|
|
