Flushed Away (2006)

Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) is a decidedly upper-crust "society mouse" who lives the life of a beloved pet in a posh Kensington flat. When a sewer rat named Sid comes spewing out of the sink and decides he's hit the jackpot, Roddy schemes to rid himself of the pest by luring him into the "whirlpool." Sid may be an ignorant slob, but he's no fool, so it is Roddy who winds up being flushed away into the bustling sewer world of Ratropolis as hilarity ensues. There Roddy meets Rita (voiced by Kate Winslet), an enterprising scavenger who works the sewers in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger. Roddy immediately wants out, or rather, up; Rita wants to be paid for her trouble; and, speaking of trouble, the villainous Toad (voiced by Ian McKellen)--who royally despises all rodents equally, making no distinction between mice and rats--wants them iced ... literally. The Toad dispatches his two hapless hench-rats, Spike (voiced by Andy Serkis) and Whitey (voiced by Bill Nighy, man he is in everything these days), to get the job done. When they fail, the Toad has no choice but to send to France for his cousin--that dreaded mercenary, Le Frog (voiced by Jean Reno).

Trivia: According to Peter Lord, co-founder of Aardman, this film's original concept involved pirates, and was pitched to Dreamworks soon after the release of Chicken Run. However, Aardman were told that there was no market for pirate films (this was before 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was made), and were told to modernize the concept. By the time the writer had done this, the project was temporarily shelved to make way for the production of Wallace & Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The film uses software that was developed for the rabbits floating around the Bun-Vac 6000 in Wallace & Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The software reproduces the 'imperfections' found in clay-mation (i.e. dropped frames, thumb-prints, etc.). Aardman's first fully-CGI feature film. The reason for using computer animation instead of the studio's trademark clay animation was the large amount of scenes involving water, which is nearly impossible to do convincingly in stop motion. Hugh Jackman also provided the screams for the slug that Roddy first meets in the sewer.

This is the other film I owe Impman and I am glad he picked it, although I would have eventually seen it. At first I was a little disapointed. It didn't have the feel of an Aardman project (this was due to the CGI animation, the character did things they just couldn't have done in claymation and it was a little distracting at first). It had the look of Aardman in the characters though and I think it had the heart of Aardman in that it showed family life, even in the sewers, is better then a lone and solitary life in luxury. Once I strted to get into the story itself it just captivated me. I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a long time. Kids will like it and parents will get twice as many jokes as the kids. The characters were great, especially Le Frog. But the absolute best party of the whole movie was...the singing slugs. They are enough reason to watch the movie just by themselves. This was just down right fun to watch. It even has a french mime frog, what else could you want? Thanks Dave.