Flushed Away is a 2006 animated adventure comedy film directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell, and written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan, and Will Davies. Produced by DreamWorks Animation SKG and Aardman Features, the film stars the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Shane Richie, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis, and Jean Reno. In the film, a fancy rat named Roddy St. James (Jackman) is flushed down the toilet in his Kensington apartment and befriends a scavenger named Rita Malone (Winslet) in order to go home.
Flushed Away was the third and final of three DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Animations co-productions following Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). Director Fell conceived the concept of rats falling in love in the sewers while working on Chicken Run. In 2001, Fell developed a story and pitched it to DreamWorks. The project was first announced in July 2002, followed by comedy writing duo Clement and La Frenais being contracted to write the script, which had the working title Ratropolis. In 2003, Bowers joined Fell as co-director. It was the first Aardman Animations project animated primarily in 3D CGI animation instead of using their usual claymation, because using water on plasticine models could damage them.
The film's premiere was held on 22 October 2006 during the Tokyo International Film Festival, followed by a wide release in the United States by Paramount Pictures on 3 November 2006, and in the United Kingdom on 1 December. It received positive reviews from critics, but was a box-office disappointment, grossing $178 million against a $149 million production budget, resulting in an estimated loss of $109 million for the studios. The failure led to Aardman ending its collaboration deal with DreamWorks. The film received nominations for the BAFTA Award and Critics' Choice Award for Best Animated Feature. It received eight nominations at the 34th Annie Awards, winning five, including for the screenplay and, for McKellen's Voice Acting.
Plot Roddy St. James is a pet rat who lives in a large Kensington flat. One day after his owners go on holiday, he takes advantage of being alone. That night, a sloppy sewer rat named Sid bursts out of the kitchen's sink and decides to stay and watch the 2006 FIFA World Cup final. Imagining Sid taking over his life, Roddy demands Sid to leave, but Sid refuses and starts to treat him as a butler. He decides to take advantage of this and attempts to trick Sid into thinking that the apartment's Jacuzzi-brand toilet is an actual Jacuzzi. Despite being sloppy, Sid knows about toilets. He pretends to be tricked before pushing Roddy into the toilet and pulling the lever. After landing in London's sewer, he discovers Ratropolis, a sewer city made out of various bits of junk, resembling London.
A pirate rat tells him to find Rita Malone, an enterprising scavenger who works the drains in her boat, the Jammy Dodger and who might be able to send him home. Roddy and Rita are abducted by rats Spike and Whitey and brought before their boss, the Toad, as Rita stole back a ruby that was scavenged by her father. The Toad has a deep hatred of rodents to the point of hateful obsession. He plans to have Roddy and Rita frozen with liquid nitrogen after Roddy accidentally destroys part of the Toad’s British porcelain memorabilia, but the pair escape. Rita takes the ruby and a unique electric master cable needed to control Ratropolis' sewer floodgates.
Roddy deduces that the ruby is actually a glass replica and easily breaks it, enraging Rita, who attacks him. Roddy offers Rita a real ruby from his owner's jewelry box if she takes him back to Kensington, to which she agrees. The pair stop to visit her family before setting off. During Roddy's stay, Rita's younger brother, Liam, proposes to her and their father that they give Roddy to the Toad in exchange for money, but Rita and their father refuse to. Overhearing this, Roddy misinterprets that Rita is planning to double-cross him, so he reneges on the deal and steals the Jammy Dodger. When Rita catches up to him, she clears up the misunderstanding. The pair evade pursuit from Spike, Whitey, and their accomplices.
Tired of his henchmens' failures, the Toad sends for his French cousin, Le Frog. The Toad recounts to Le Frog where his hatred of rodents originated, which he has told to Le Frog multiple times: decades before the events of the film, the Toad was Prince Charles' favourite pet out of all of his pets. They did many things together until Charles' birthday, where he was given a rat as a gift. Over time, Charles no longer favoured the Toad and one of his servants flushed the Toad down a toilet. Le Frog and his henchmen intercept Roddy and Rita to retrieve the cable, but the duo manages to escape to Roddy's flat, though the Jammy Dodger is destroyed.
Roddy delivers Rita the promised ruby as well as an emerald to build a new Jammy Dodger, then shows her around his flat. At first, she thinks that he has family, but when she notices his cage and recognizes Sid, she realizes that Roddy is a pet. Rita tries to persuade Roddy to come with her, but he is too proud to admit his loneliness. Rita flushes herself down the apartment's toilet only for her to be kidnapped, with the Toad taking back the master cable. Roddy joins Sid to watch the game. When Sid warns him not to drink too much before half-time, he realizes that the Toad plans to open the floodgates during half-time, when every human in London will use their toilets, allowing the wave of drainage to wash away every rat in Ratropolis. Roddy entrusts Sid with his home and has Sid flush him down the toilet again. He frees Rita, and together they defeat the Toad and his henchmen by getting Toad and Le Frog's tongues stuck to moving gears and freezing the wave of drainage with liquid nitrogen. Hailed as a hero, Roddy agrees to stay in Ratropolis with Rita. Soon after, the two, as well as Rita's family, set off on the Jammy Dodger II.
In a mid-credits scene, when Tabitha, the daughter of Roddy's owners, finds Sid on the couch after she and her parents return from holiday, she introduces him to their new cat, much to his horror.
Voice cast Hugh Jackman as Roddy St. James, a pampered pet rat who lives in a Kensington luxury apartment with a wealthy British family. He is flushed down the toilet by Sid into the sewer drains. Kate Winslet as Rita Malone, a street-wise and rather aloof scavenger rat and the oldest child of her large family. She is the captain of the Jammy Dodger and Roddy's love interest. Ian McKellen as the Toad, an unhinged, pompous, and aristocratic cane toad who wants to get rid of the entire population of Ratropolis to make room for his hundreds of offspring. For his performance, Ian McKellen won the Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production. Andy Serkis as Spike, one of the Toad's two top hench-rats. He is the quicker-witted and more aggressive of the two. Bill Nighy as Whitey, another of the Toad's two top hench-rats. Whitey is an albino rat, and Spike's partner. Unlike Spike, Whitey is sympathetic and less vicious but is also ignorant and gullible. Jean Reno as Le Frog, the Toad's sarcastic French cousin. He refers to the Toad as "my warty English cousin". He masters martial arts and is the leader of a team of hench-frogs. Shane Richie as Sid, an over-weight and lazy sewer rat from the sewer drain. He is the one who flushes Roddy down his own toilet and is an acquaintance of Rita and her family. David Suchet and Kathy Burke as Mr. and Mrs. Malone respectively, Rita's parents Miriam Margolyes as Grandmum Malone, Rita's grandmother who has a crush on Roddy mistaking him for Tom Jones. Christopher Fairbank as Thimblenose Ted, another hench-rat who serves as the Toad's third-best enforcer after Spike and Whitey. Fairbank also voices the cockroach living in the Malone household.
Production The idea for a film about rats that fall in love in sewers was proposed by animator Sam Fell during the production of Aardman Animation's Chicken Run (2000). At the time, Aardman Animations encouraged everyone at the company to come up with ideas for features for the DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation partnership. In 2001, Fell, along with development executive Mike Cooper, and producer Peter Lord developed the concept into a story before pitching it to DreamWorks. The film was first announced in July 2002, and in what was then a surprise move, it was revealed as being Aardman Animations's first-ever all-3D CGI animation project. Lord described the pitch as "The African Queen with the gender roles reversed.". After the film was announced, comic writing duo Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais were contracted to write the script, which had the working title Ratropolis. In 2003, David Bowers joined in to direct the film with Fell. Other writers were also later brought in to help write the script, including Frasier writers and showrunners Christopher Lloyd and Joe Keenan, and Twins and Johnny English writer William Davies.
Traditionally, Aardman Animations had used stop-motion claymation for their animated feature films, but it was too complex to animate water with this technique, and using actual water can damage plasticine models. It would have been also expensive to composite 3D CGI animation into shots that include water, of which there are many in the film, so the company chooses to make Flushed Away their first-ever all-3D CGI animation project. This is the third and final of three Aardman Animations-produced films released by DreamWorks Animation. Aardman's turbulent experience with DreamWorks Animation during the making of this film and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit led to the split between the two studios.
Soundtrack
On Halloween (31 October) 2006, the Flushed Away: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack was released by Astralwerks.
Home media Flushed Away was released on DVD on 20 February 2007. It includes behind-the-scenes, deleted info, Jammy Dodger videos and all-new slug songs. It was released in the UK on 2 April 2007, where it was also packaged with a plasticine 'Slug Farm' kit. The film was released on Blu-ray by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment on 4 June 2019 around the world except for the UK. As of October 2010, 4.9 million units were sold.
In July 2014, the film's distribution rights were purchased by DreamWorks Animation from Paramount Pictures and transferred to 20th Century Fox before reverting to Universal Pictures in 2018, following NBCUniversal's acquisition of DreamWorks Animation in 2016.
Reception Critical response Flushed Away has an approval rating of 72% on Rotten Tomatoes and an average rating of , based on 137 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Clever and appealing for both children and adults, Flushed Away marks a successful entry into digitally animated features for Aardman Animations." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 74 out of 100 based on 28 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Each film's score can be accessed from the website's search bar.