U, 85 mins

Aardman Features of Bristol gained the backing of DreamWorks but ended their love affair with Plasticine for their latest project, Flushed Away, a computer-animated comedy about sewer rats. But despite the move to CGI the look is still unmistakably Aardman — from the trademark toothy grimaces to the obsessive intricacy of the world created.

The animators manage to avoid the synthetic chill that blights much computer animation, Given that the pre-teen market is wildly excited by the slightest sniff of lavatory humour, a movie that dives down the pan in the first ten minutes should be guaranteed gold. But Flushed Away has disappointed in America, where it has been on release since the beginning of the month.

However the film is superior to most of the year’s other animated releases, though it is not vintage Aardman. The endearingly oddball vision is diluted. While Wallace and Gromit had an effortless and unforced Englishness, Flushed Away is heavier handed. It flies the flag for brand Britain, but the tone is more Piccadilly Circus tourist trap than the quirky English-eccentric approach of the previous features.

The story is of a pampered pet mouse, Roddy St James of Kensington (Hugh Jackman), who finds himself usurped from his palatial lodgings and flushed headlong into the sewers. There he finds a teeming community of fellow rodents, notably the streetwise Rita (Kate Winslet). Central London is re-created in miniature in the cavernous underground waterways. Makeshift double-decker buses floating on the effluent serve the transport needs of the rodent population. And in a lair worthy of a Bond villain is a despotic toad (Ian McKellen) who plots the demise of the rat city and a new amphibian dawn.

Roddy soon realises that friendship and family are worth a lot more than a life of luxury. Fortunately, some hilarious French-baiting gags and a choir of harmonising slugs tone down the worthy moral message.

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