"Flushed Away" It's Alright

 


    I remember when I was a child I had a toy of "The Toad" in Flushed Away. I really had no idea what he was, the amphibians in this film possess no discernible physical features. Really all I remember is that it came from a McDonald's happy meal and you could stretch his mouth to fit your finger inside of it. That is pretty much the extent of what I remembered of this movie. So much so that when it was put on during a family gathering, I didn't even realize that the main characters were supposed to be rats. I mean they look so humanoid that I just assumed they were little people living underground. Even still, I'd say this movie holds up quite well, even almost twenty years later, and while it isn't my favourite Dreamworks movie, I don't think it should fall to the wayside either.

    Easily, my favourite part of this film was the creativity that just oozes from it. This is a short movie, and thus they don't have time to explain everything about this little society the movie is about, but what it does show you just looks fun. Like just look at the Jammy Dodger is built in this movie and tell me it doesn't look fun? Even though it's a small detail the use of household objects to create this pretty advanced world is an absolutely piece of worldbuilding I have to appreciate. Or even how the Toad literally freezes all of his enemies using a fridge and liquid nitrogen. For a world that is built in the sewers, and using scrap parts, I never really felt disgusted or as if the world looked too dirty. Obviously it isn't squeaky clean, but it looks just clean enough that I'd be willing to visit.

    Which brings me to what is kind of easily the movies greatest flaw, I just think it's a little too short. This film is basically an hour and fifteen minutes long. That inherently isn't a bad thing, I don't think this movie needed to be stretched to two hours, however, I do think that they probably could have used some extra time to make the film feel more cohesive. I think this disconnect is most apparent in the climax. I mean Roddy has achieved his goal, Rita gets her jewels, and then you do the big reveal that The Toad wants to kill everyone in Ratsville or whatever its called? Surely they could have moved his "tragic backstory" earlier. I mean he literally works with rats and they're just like cool bomb our safe haven we'll help you. It's a bit messy, and if they just rearranged the placement of some reveals, or fleshed it out a tad more, it'd probably help the movie feel less disjointed. 

Final Score: 60/100

    That's the real issue with this movie, it doesn't do anything well enough to move it up in terms of rankings, and it's much too short to really make any egregious mistakes. I suppose I could talk about the acting, because I did not realize Hugh Jackman was the main character in this movie, or Ian McKellen, but I appreciate their inclusion nonetheless. To be honest the more I write this review the more I start to realize that maybe it's not that underrated and I just don't think about it ever. I don't think it really needs a cult following either.

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