Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Flushed Away Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 2, 2019

In Flushed Away, a pampered rat must go down and get dirty to find purpose in his life. Directors David Bowers and Sam Fell's 2006 computer animated adventure film may be a little visually crude by 2019 standards but it's an entertaining ride and refreshingly free from any heavy-handed social commentary. That doesn't mean there isn't any, that means it's more gently folded into the frivolity rather than forced into every digital millimeter of the film's existence (sorry, but UglyDolls' bad taste is still fresh on the tongue). Its a capable, lively movie with well-written characters and a pleasantly and robustly constructed world of waste that, if anything, offers plenty of interestingly weird eye candy.

A pet rat named Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) lives a life of luxury and frivolous make-believe fun in his palatial human home. One night, with the human family away, he finds a sewer rat named Sid (voiced by Shane Richie) in the kitchen. Sid claims the fancy pad as his own. When Roddy tries to send Sid back from whence he came, he is flushed down the toilet and into unfamiliar, and filthy, turf: the sewer! He thinks he finds a way out but instead finds himself in the middle of a thriving underground metropolis populated by rats and constructed out of discarded human junk. Desperate to get home, he is pointed towards Rita Malone (voiced by Kate Winslet), a boat captain who might just help him find a way out. But when Roddy gets himself mixed up in Rita’s problems with a local gangster (voiced by Ian McKellen) with a dark and devious agenda, he has no choice but to man up down in the muck and save himself and a world he never knew existed.

Flushed Away is a well conceived movie, taking a classic fish (or rat, in this case) out of water story and crafting it around, and into, a ridiculously delightful world filled with interesting details and characters. Almost the entirety of the movie is made up of things humans normally dislike or dismiss, namely rats and trash. Sure, Roddy is the one-in-a-million pet rat who lives the life of luxury, playing dress-up and milking the lifestyles of the ratty rich and famous for all it’s worth, but the movie’s richest locations are its poorest, down in the sewers where the digital artists have a field day building an entire thriving rat-sized metropolis out of broken down trash remnants. Though not everything in the movie works to perfection, the opportunity to soak in the visual joys of one of the weirdest and should-be revolting locations ever seen in an animated movie is reason enough to watch.

On the flip side, the film has it stretches where it feels plodding and repetitive, where the plot is stretched a bit thin in order to reach a respectable runtime, but such is not a movie killer. The film does its best to maintain a fast pace in its action while working hard to make the slower character moments worth the time investment. The characters are surprisingly well drawn from the inside out, and the voice acting is up to the challenge of bringing real personality to them all. The film thrives around its background but finds enough heart up front, as well as some fun kinetic action, to hold interest and build a pleasantly enjoyable movie.

Flushed Away Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For its Blu-ray debut, Universal has released Flushed Away with a fairly fresh 1080p transfer. The image's issues are relatively few. The nighttime scene around the five-minute mark in chapter two, when Roddy goes exploring through the kitchen to locate the source of a strange sound, comes with a good bit of banding, noise, and a little macroblocking. But these are exceptions to the rule, relatively brief asides that don't appear with much regularity elsewhere. These issues arise very infrequently elsewhere, as does a touch of aliasing, but for the most part the image appears pleasantly accurate to its source. The animation has a feel of slickness and smoothness about it but never to any real detriment. Certainly it's well textured within these parameters. The bricks down in the sewer, the finer appointments in Roddy's human home, various costumes, and object details down in the world below, which are deliciously complex and texturally involved, are all 1080p highlights that capture the source details quite nicely with robust clarity and sure sharpness. Character models are crisp and well defined, even if hair is a bit more clumpy than it is organic. Colors are pleasing, with the image finding a satisfying assortment of tones both in Roddy's stately home and down in the sewer. The palette plays nicely against the fairly regular reddish brick background. It's a pleasingly diverse palette with plenty of opportunity to shine, which it does with regularity.

Flushed Away Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Flushed Away's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is a capable compliment to the movie. The track is appropriately energetic, offering quality 80s beats near film's start when the family goes away, leaving Roddy by himself to play. As Roddy is flushed down the drain, there are plenty of rushing water effects pushing through the stage, and his arrival in the underground rat city sees the stage spring to life with pleasingly immersive and detailed results. The track continues with a healthy allotment of nicely detailed and stage-stretching sounds. While it's rarely full-throttle intense, and as surrounds don't carry a prodigious amount of content with regularity, there's a nice feel for general stage-filling detail and basic immersion into all of the film's scenes. Music soars to it most pleasing, full-stage spread and richness in chapter 13 as Roddy and Rita soar upwards by holding onto a plastic bag. The low end and the surrounds find their greatest usage at film's climax, with a rush of water through the sewer that carries not only the deep-end chaos but also the din of a panicking populace. Dialogue is consistently balanced and accurate with satisfying front-center placement. It is well prioritized for the duration.

Flushed Away Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Flushed Away contains extras focused on music and the cast. It also includes a filmmaker commentary track. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. A DVD copy is not. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.

• Slug Songs (480i): Micro music videos inspired by the film. Included are "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" Performed by The Slugs (0:26) and "Pump It" Performed by The Slugs (0:38).
• The Music of Flushed Away (480i, 8:56): An exploration of Harry Gregson-Williams' score.
• Meet the Cast (480i, 8:43): A closer look at the primary voice cast, including Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis, Shane Richie, and Jean Reno.
• Audio Commentary: Directors David Bowers and Sam Fell speak about the film, making for the meatiest supplement in the set. They cover the London setting, characters and voice acting, story and themes, the humor, some technical details, and more. It's a well-rounded track that covers much of what's missing in the video-based supplemental collection.

Flushed Away Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Flushed Away is a movie not be discarded, even if it's built on a foundation of the things humans reject with regularity, namely rats and trash. It's not a particularly deep film, which is not a bad thing, but it is enjoyably envisioned and voiced, bringing a pulse to a surprisingly robust underground construct and a heart to its rodent population. Universal's Blu-ray is well rounded, featuring solid video and audio presentations to go along with several extras. Recommended.