Tag: Christopher Lloyd

Flushed Away (2006, David Bowers and Sam Fell)

There’s something a bit off about Flushed Away. There’s some lazy storytelling, but I can forgive it since the rats aren’t physiologically accurate anyway and it is really enjoyable to watch–no, it’s something a lot more base. It’s obvious no one really cares. Aardman productions used to have passion by default–they were stop-motion and stop-motion meant a lot of time making things work–Flushed Away is CG and there’s just something off in the storytelling’s adaptation to the technology. I’m not a fan of CG–I’ve gotten better about it, much like I got to be a DVD supporter over laserdisc (I’m forced to out of necessity)–but Flushed Away’s problems aren’t in the literal adaptation. The fiancée thought the film was the traditional Aardman style, so it’s a visual fit, but the laziness hasn’t got anything to do with the technology. It’s the damn story. There are some nice moments to the film, but it’s all really pat. Maybe it’s just because it goes platonic… Maybe I’m pissed because it’s a cheat.

Anyway, there’s something great stuff–the casting is real good, particularly Kate Winslet, which surprised me. She’s willing to have a lot of fun and her character’s good, surprising even. Hugh Jackman plays the foppish rat who ends up in the sewer and he’s fine, but almost impossible to identify with for a lot of the film. Not in a bad way, he’s just the butt of the jokes. Bill Nighy is great as a thug rat, big shock, but Jean Reno is wasted. Not because his character is “Le Frog” (get it?), but because it’s Jean Reno and that casting is supposed to mean something. It doesn’t. He’s just a French guy.

If you do see the film–and I do recommend it, I’ll probably buy it because it is a pleasant diversion–and you notice there are characters missing from the trailer (I guess Aardman found it easier to produce scenes to cut on computer instead of in reality), you’re not alone. In fact, you’re seeing the big problem with Flushed Away. It’s too short (IMDb says eighty-four minutes and I say long credits) and it’s too slight. It’s an exercise in amusement, nothing more.

CREDITS

2/4★★

Directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell; written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Christopher Lloyd, Joe Keenan and William Davies, based on a story by Fell, Peter Lord, Clement and La Frenais; edited by John Venzon; music by Harry Gregson-Williams; production designer, David A.S. James; produced by Cecil Kramer, Lord and David Sproxton; released by Paramount Pictures.

Starring Hugh Jackman (Roddy), Kate Winslet (Rita), Ian McKellen (the Toad), Jean Reno (le Frog), Bill Nighy (Whitey), Andy Serkis (Spike), Shane Richie (Sid), Kathy Burke (Rita’s Mum), David Suchet (Rita’s Dad) and Miriam Margolyes (Rita’s Grandma).

RELATED

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984, Leonard Nimoy)

Layers. Star Trek III has no layers. It’s all id. Star Trek loses its ship, Kirk loses his son, Dr. McCoy loses his mind and none of it means anything. My fiancée pointed out that III is a bridge between II and IV, it brings Spock back to life. It fulfills a need. Forget the need. Forget the bridge–The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly knew what to do with bridges.

III isn’t bad, though. There are some great sequences (Nimoy is a damn good Panavision director, damn good), but they’re all too short. The film runs 105 minutes and it’s got too much to do for that time to be appropriate. The film deviates from the Enterprise crew to Kirk’s son and spends a bunch of time on the Genesis planet (sorry to go geek), the product of II. Well, that’s fine, but it’s all the McGuffin to bring Spock back. We get a long, tortured explanation that Kirk’s son–a scientist–flubbed his work to guarantee success. There’s an attempt at a rhyme to Star Trek II, but it’s incredibly forced and, even if it wasn’t, I’m not sure rhymes between films in a series should be so evident. The rhymes should be feelings, not plot points. To go geek some more… the planet was supposed to be made out of a moon or some “dead” planet. It was made, by accident, out of a cloud of dust. Maybe that could have been the reason it was unstable, not because the kid was a screw-up. There’s a trivia note on IMDb that the writers killed the kid because of this transgression–he “deserved” it. What a load.

All of the faults of the film, except the running time since Nimoy probably had the opportunity to insert scenes for the DVD, rest on the writer’s shoulders. Harve Bennett did a bang-up job producing Star Trek II through V, but he’s pood of a writer (oddly, there are some nice producing flourishes around).

I can think of two particular sequences that Nimoy does some amazing work with–a chase scene and the Enterprise burning up–and I desperately wanted more from these scenes. They really resonated. So did the early scenes on the planet, which lasted about fifteen good seconds before the “story” took over. Events are quality’s enemy… events are excellence’s enemy? I was trying for a rhyme thing, but I guess I’ll just have to be happy that I worked ‘pood’ into a post.