Review: Flushed Away

UK release date: 1st December

The first computer-animated feature from the Aardman brigade successfully replicates their Wallace & Gromit claymation aesthetic with convincing and entertaining (if less charming) results.

Hugh Jackman provides the voice of Roddy St James, a posh Kensington pet mouse who is flushed down the toilet into a vast rodent metropolis — a detailed mini-London constructed from rubbish. There he teams up with a streetwise rat (Kate Winslet) to foil the plans of a villainous toad (Ian McKellen) to flood the sewer city during half-time of the World Cup final. And along the way, Roddy finds genuine companionship for the first time.

Visually inventive and with a rich dose of British humour, directors David Bowers and Sam Fell’s film has thrilling adventure for the kids and droll wit for grown-ups. Jean Reno scores big laughs as stereotypical French mercenary Le Frog, but best of all are the singing slugs crooning pop hits as hilarious comment on the action.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate U
Running time 84mins

Review by Alan Jones

News: Matt Damon

The Departed‘s Damon continues to be one of the hardest-working stars in film, with two films already completed and two more currently filming since wrapping on Scorsese’s latest.

Of those already completed, first up is the highly promising The Good Shepherd. Directed by Robert De Niro, Damon takes the lead opposite De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Joe Pesci and Alec Baldwin in this period piece drama about the founding of the CIA, written by the hugely talented Forrest Gump, The Insider, Ali and Munich screenwriter Eric Roth. After that he’ll be popping up in Margaret alongside Anna Paquin, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno in this coming of age drama about a teenage girl convinced that she caused a traffic accident.

Damon is currently busy filming the third movies in two separate franchises – Ocean’s Thirteen and The Bourne Ultimatum. If you’ve seen the last films in either of those two series, it should be fairly obvious which one’s likely to be the best…