Flushed Away

Flushed Away is a 2006 British-American computer animated action/adventure comedy film directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell. It was made in the partnership between Aardman Animations and DreamWorks Animation, and is Aardman's first completely computer-animated feature as opposed to the usual stop-motion.
== Summary ==
The film stars the voice talents of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, Ian McKellen, Shane Richie and Jean Reno. The story was by Sam Fell, Peter Lord, Dick Clement, and Ian La Frenais, and the screenplay was written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Joe Keenan, and William Davies.
The film was released in US on 3 November 2006, and in UK on 1 December 2006, and was distributed by Paramount Pictures, except for Switzerland, Spain, and the Netherlands, which were handled by Universal Pictures.
==Plot==
Roddy St. James (Hugh Jackman) is a decidedly upper crust pet rat who makes his home in a posh Kensington flat. The story opens up one morning in London where everyone in England is preparing for the World Cup final where England is playing against Germany in a few days. While his owners are away on holiday Roddy plays around the house. A common sewer rat named Sid (Shane Richie) comes spewing out of the sink and decides to stay, especially this house is his style. Roddy schemes to get rid of Sid by luring him into the "jacuzzi", which is actually the toilet. Sid isn't fooled at all and instead he pushes Roddy in and flushes him away into the sewers. There, Roddy discovers a city resembling London in the sewer made out of various bits of junk, and meets Rita Malone (Kate Winslet), an enterprising scavenger rat who works the drains in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger. Rita does not like Roddy initially, but ends up taking him along, while her arch enemy The Toad (Ian McKellen) sends his rat henchmen, Spike (Andy Serkis) and Whitey (Bill Nighy), after her because she had stolen back her father's prized ruby a long time ago. The Toad despises all rodents to the point of hateful obsession. He plans to have them frozen with liquid nitrogen inside an ice-maker. The pair escape, and Rita takes a unique electrical cable that, unknown to everyone but the Toad, is required to control the floodgates.
Roddy finds that the ruby is a fake and breaks it in front of Rita, enraging her, for she can now not get the money she needs for her large family. Roddy offers her a real ruby if she takes him back to Kensington. Accepting the offer, the pair first stop to visit her family before setting off. During Roddy's stay, he overhears a conversation that causes him to think that Rita had double-crossed him, so he steals the Jammy Dodger. When Rita catches up to him, she is able to clear up the misunderstanding. The pair evade Spike and Whitey pursuing in a remote-controlled toy boat, with Thimblenose Ted and others on eggbeater jet skis. During this scene, Roddy and Rita share a quick love moment. Incensed at his minions’s repeated failures, The Toad sends for his French cousin; an infamous, if somewhat laid back, mercenary known as Le Frog (Jean Reno). During this scene, it is revealed that The Toad was once Prince Charles' pet, but was replaced by a pet rat, and subsequently flushed down a toilet. Le Frog and his subordinates intercept the duo and retrieve the cable, but Roddy and Rita use a plastic bag to lift themselves out of the sewer (snatching away the cable during the ascent) and get Roddy home, though the Jammy Dodger is destroyed.
Back home, Roddy pays Rita the promised ruby and an emerald, then proceeds to show her around his house. She at first believes he has family in the home, but noticing his cage, she realises he's a pet. Roddy tries to pass Sid off as his brother, but Sid and Rita know each other. Rita tries to persuade Roddy to come with her, but he is too proud to admit that he is lonely. By now, they have fallen in love but have not told each other their feelings. She departs, both of them broken-hearted, but is soon captured by The Toad. Talking to Sid about half-time, Roddy pieces together The Toad's plan: to open the gates during halftime of the World Cup, when all the humans will most likely be using their toilets, causing a great flood and drowning the rats and their underground city in sewage. He can then use the depopulated city as a home for his own tadpole offspring. He gives Sid his cushy position and has him flush him back to the sewers to find Rita and save the city. Together, they defeat The Toad and freeze the wave of sewage generated by the flushing of countless toilets during half-time with liquid nitrogen before it drowns the entire rat population.
Rita and Roddy build the Jammy Dodger Mark Two and set off in her with Rita's entire brood. A newspaper article reveals England had lost on penalties. Later while the credits start, Roddy's former owner Tabitha comes back with a new pet cat, which scares Sid.
==Voice cast==
* Hugh Jackman as Roderick "Roddy" St. James, a lonely pampered pet mouse living in a Kensington apartment with a wealthy British family who is flushed down the toilet by Sid into the sewers.
* Kate Winslet as Rita Malone, a street smart scavenger rat and the oldest child of a large family. She is the captain of The Jammy Dodger.
* Ian McKellen as The Toad, a big, pompous amphibian wanting the entire rat population to be killed off so he can make room for his hundreds of offspring. Although his motive is also for personal reasons as his previous owner replaced him with a rat.
* Jean Reno as Le Frog, The Toad's French cousin. He masters martial arts and is the leader of a team of hench-frogs.
* Andy Serkis as Spike, one of the Toad's top two henchmen rats. Being the Toad's hench-rat is Spike's first job, despite him being only a teenager. He is the smarter of the two.
* Bill Nighy as Whitey, another of the Toad's top two henchmen rats. Whitey is an albino rat, once working in a lab and he is Spike's partner. Unlike Spike, Whitey is gentle and less violent, but is also rather slow-witted and dumb.
* Shane Richie as Sid, an over-weight and lazy rat from the sewers. He is an acquaintance of Rita and her family, and the one who flushed Roddy down the toilet into the sewers.
== International Versions ==
=== Danish ===
* Caspar Phillipson – Roddy
* Iben Hjejle – Rita
* Henrik Koefoed – Sid
* Henning Jensen – Tudsen
* Thomas Mørk – Le Frø
* Peter Aude – Blegmand
* Jens Jacob Tychsen – Strit 
== Trivia ==
* This was the first Aardman animation to not use stop motion, but clay figures were used for character modeling.
* This was the third & final film before DWA & Aardman stopped making movies together.
* There was DVDs on the shelf, & there was Shrek, Shrek 2 Shark Tale & Madagascar, thus seen as Easter eggs.
Category:2006 films
Category:2006 computer-animated films
Category:2000s American animated films
Category:English-language films
Category:American animated films
Category:American films
Category:British animated films
Category:British children's films
Category:British films
Category:Buddy films
Category:Computer-animated films
Category:DreamWorks Animation animated films
Category:Films set in London
Category:Films featuring anthropomorphic characters
Category:Films directed by David Bowers
Category:Aardman Animations films
Category:DreamWorks Animation films
Category:DreamWorks films
Category:Paramount Pictures films
Category:Paramount Pictures animated films
Category:Films distributed by Paramount Pictures
Category:2006 animated films
== Citation ==
es:Ratónpolis
Category:Movies in the Fall
Category:Rated PG
Category:Articles with red links