DVDizzy Forum

Anyone hear of this movie? Sounds like it might be fun
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424095/

Never Heard Of It, Sounds Good.

I have never heard of it either. It sounds cute from the sentence I read about it and it looks like it has a good cast for the characters voices.

Yeah, the cast had me interested. And I love rats.

That's a great cast line-up, but then I realized that not only was this being made by Dreamworks (hence the all of the big name stars), but Pixar has a film about Rats coming in 2006, as well, I believe. Hmmm...first ants, then fish, now rats. Curiouser and curiouser...

Disneykid wrote:That's a great cast line-up, but then I realized that not only was this being made by Dreamworks (hence the all of the big name stars), but Pixar has a film about Rats coming in 2006, as well, I believe. Hmmm...first ants, then fish, now rats. Curiouser and curiouser...

Well, technically this is an Aardman Animation film, although the bulk of the animation is being done by Dreamworks/PDI as it will be Aardman's first CGI movie.

However they are most definitely not copying Pixar, as this has been in for works at Aardman for years.

News from Mid-2002: http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/365/365742p1.html

The recently announced Flushed Away is also being referred to as Ratropolis. As previously reported, the story will focus on a pampered British rat who is flushed down the toilet of his high-class dwelling and into the stinky London sewers. As he tries to find his way home, he falls in love with the sewer and its inhabitants. The studio hasn't determined if the film will be 100% claymation or if it will include some CG elements.

See also: http://www.toonhound.com/forthcoming.htm#flushed

I'm pretty sure I've read about the project (as then unnamed) as early as 2000 or so too (round about the release of Chicken Run)

Disneykid wrote:(hence the all of the big name stars), but Pixar has a film about Rats coming in 2006, as well, I believe. Hmmm...first ants, then fish, now rats. Curiouser and curiouser...

You mean 2007.
I'd really like it if for once Pixar and Dreamworks don't compete on the same subject matter (as mentioned; ants, fish and now rats). It's really getting old!

Just thought I would pitch in a plug for what looks like the animated movie hit of the winter season - Dreamworks Animation/Aardman CG's "Flushed Away". Just watched the HBO First Look special and was blown away by the fact that they are keeping with the Claymation look, but it is all CGI, and that is a first for the Aardman group. Featuring a voice cast that is second to none, including Hugh Jackman, Shane Richie, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis and Jean Reno. It comes to theaters in the US in November.

Been looking forward to this since I saw the trailer during...I think Cars.

Escapay

Sadly, this one does not interest me because of the main characters look REALLY bad. And the story is too cliche.

Yeah,there was already a movie that came out with rats in a sewer called Rat's Tale using puppets. So this doesn't look like anything new. I'll for and rent it on DVD.

I'm really looking forward to this. I love all of Aardman's stuff, especially Chicken Run (which they should make a sequel to), and all of the Wallace and Gromit stuff, so I'll definitely watch this, even if it is CGI. It might throw me off a bit, but I'm sure I'll love it. I hope that if they make a Chicken Run or Wallace and Gromit sequel that they go back to claymation. It's just classic that stuff, so they can't muck it up by making it CGI.
-James

I believe there's two reasons for it being CGI.

Firstly, Dreamworks wanted/demanded (you decide) a film pretty quick after the long suffering Aardman "Tortoise Beats Hare" project was delayed more and more and finally[?] cancelled.

Secondly, being as it's set in the sewers, there's far too much water for a lot of the film's running time to be done with stop-motion animation. They were always going to do this in CGI (Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit uses CGI for effect and repetition hard to achieve in stop-motion, so this wouldn't be new).

I think some of the work they did on Curse of the Were-Rabbit, such as CGI thumbprints, convinced them they could do all of Flushed Away in CGI.

I understand their method of animation of choice is still stop-motion.

Well I saw it earlier today.

It was okay. It certainly lacked the brilliance of "Chicken Run" or "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit".

I think it's main problem was there were waaay too many jokes. I think this gets the record of having more jokes than ANY animated film ever(take that you foolish Chicken Little haters ), and with all these pop-culture referencing films, that's a hard thing to get.

But there was just so much jokes there, I can't remember several of them. It needed more heart. Or at least better pacing.

Now that said, there was definetely a lot of funny jokes in it (certainly more than the Dhrek series or Shark Crap) and laughed several times at some very clever stuff*, but too much stuff that didn't work or felt out of place.

Now the characters themselves as long as the plot was fine, it just needed quite a bit of work I thought. I really can't help but wonder if Aardman had input from Dreamworks.

Even if it were true, I wish the best for Aardman, now that they're away from those evil ogres over at Dreamworks.

*Loved the references to Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run at the beginning. Just a hint for you with sharp eyes!

Timon/PumbaaFan wrote:

I wish the best for Aardman, now that they're away from those evil ogres over at Dreamworks.

TPF, this movie was a Dreamworks/Aardman co-production. I don't know what movie you saw, but it was Dreamworks and Paramount who released this movie.

And as far as the movie goes, you didn't mention that even though it was a CG movie, there were still little tributes to their clever Claymation process with little fingerprints here and there.

I thought there were some really funny jokes, and there, like you said, were some that just didn't quite hit the mark. I thought all the voices fit the characters, and I thought the story was very cleverly written.

I will definitely see this one again in the theater, and make it part of my DVD collection of good animated films.

Chicken Little had jokes?

I think Shark Tale holds the record for most pop culture refrences in my book (Coca-Cola, Godfather, Jaws, the list goes on and on)

Junkie- I know this film is distributed by Dreamworks. However, Aardman have stated after "Flushed Away", they're going seperate places. That's what I meant when making the statement.

As for the animation style: I definetely thought the CG was great, and the right medium for the story too. While I didn't notice the fingerprints(I'll take your word for it and try and catch it with the 2nd viewing) I also thought they still managed to have the same claymation feel we know and love from them.

Overall, liked I said, I enjoyed the film. It had it's share of great moments, it just felt like there were too many jokes though, and some just didn't work. I thought it could've also maybe slowed down or something. But overall, I liked it. 3rd best animated film of the year imo, behind Over the Hedge and Cars.

slave2moonlight wrote:Chicken Little had jokes?

*Red light blinks* Warning! Waring! Be kind and stay on topic before we change it to Chicken Little appreciation thread! Warning Waring!

I plan on maybe seeing this before it goes out of the theaters. I loved Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit so I have a feeling this will be good. I was a little put-off by the fact that it's ALL CGI (I think claymation has a certain *charm* to it) but it is done in the style that LOOKS like claymation so I'll be able to look past it.

Plus it has three awesome Lord of the Rings actors in it:
Ian McKellen (Gandalf)
Andy Serkis (Gollum)
Bill Nighy (voice of Sam in the BBC LotR dramatization)

I took my 7 year old cousin to see this today. It was pretty good. He enjoyed it as well. I may add this to my DVD collection when it comes out.