(The Dreamworks-uary logo is shown, before showing clips from Flushed Away)
Doug (vo): It's a little weird to see Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit design in a CG world. Maybe it had to do with the fact that their studio burned down around that time. Maybe this was meant to be stop-motion, but because of that, they had to make it CG. Well, whatever the reason, Flushed Away is a pretty enjoyable flick.
Story
Doug (vo): It stars a mouse, played by Hugh Jackman, who's owned by an incredibly wealthy family. But things get complicated when an old dirty mate of his drops by and claims he wants to turn the place into a party hub. Jackman disagrees, but that doesn't really faze his pal, as he just flushes him down the toilet. What we discover is an underwater, or under-pipe, world, filled with ooey creatures, lots of villains, and a whole civilization. He comes across another mouse, played by Kate Winslet, pulling off sort of a gender reversal of the African Queen, riding her boat through sewers, trying to collect treasure for herself, while also trying to save her fish out of water. There's an evil Toad boss, played by Ian McKellen, who is destined to get more riches and power, and vows to destroy anyone who stands in his way, which, of course, happens to be our two heroes.
Review
Doug (vo): The under-sewer world they create is incredibly fun and inventive, which also gives away to a lot of jokes involving them using everyday props as, well, this.
[A scene is shown, showing a mime frog confronting the two main characters. The mime frog has a cell phone on his face. The cell phone's screen shows the Toad. As the Toad speaks, the mime does movements to represent what the Toad is saying]
Toad: This dance of deception must end. [The mime starts dancing, and doesn't stop] Return what you have stolen from me...enough dancing!
Doug (vo): That's wildly creative. The film also sort of has that British mentality and that very laid back sort of humor, mixed in with a lot of good action scenes here and there. It creates for a lot of good chases, a lot of good jokes, and a lot of good character moments. It's a fun adventure that knows just when to throw in the right amount of jokes and just when to throw in the right amount of character.
[The main characters are shown]
Doug (vo): Hugh Jackman, of course, is the priss who must learn to be tough, and Kate Winslet is the fun-loving action hero who must show him the way. They get along well, they share pretty good chemistry, and they have several moments of trying to rescue the other. I think this was the film I started to realize that Dreamworks was sort of the "out of the box" animation company, in that, yeah, they're making sort of these general films for the general public, but they're really thinking of these odd, abstract ideas to put in these general audience-pleasing films. And I think it's a good mix. The general movie public can get sucked in to the characters and sort of the everyday emotions, but then they can laugh when something just so bizarre and so strange pops up like this.
Final thought
Doug (vo): And Flushed Away is definitely one of those movies that employs a lot of those tricks. It's a lot of fun to watch. It's got some great voice acting, it's got some great animation, it's got that wonderfully strange British humor, it's one of the only films that goes down the toilet, but in a good way.
[A scene showing the main characters flying around London in a parachute is shown]