Lotus666
06-08-09, 08:54 PM
Another one fished up from the depths of "Cached"...
What happens when you cross Dreamworks with Aardman? You get one very high quality, charming and entertaining children's film that adults are more than happy to sit through. For me - british humour at it's best! (Rated PG - 12+ for some mild language and violence)
Out last night with a couple of friends of ours - we first hit "Waggamama's" (a not too bad/reasonably priced Noodle Bar here in Manchester) then availed ourselves of Orange Wednesday's "Two For One" Film Offer.
The story concerns Roddy St James (Hugh Jackman), an upper crust pampered pet rodent living in posh Kensington, who is left at home whilst his owners go on a holiday. Whilst enjoying the run of the home - into his life hurtles Sid (Shane Ritchie), a sewer rat spewed up via the kitchen sink who thinks he's hit the bigtime and proceeds to make himself at home. Roddy, protective of both his space and his owners' possessions, tries to rid himself of the obnoxious Sid by luring him to the "Jacuzzi" (in actual fact - the toilet). Sid is not so thick however, and proceeds to follow the movie title...
Our poor hapless Roddy ends up dumped down the sewers into a duplicate underground London, complete with dodgy geezers, and american (rat) tourists! It is here that Roddy meets up with Rita (Kate Winslett), an enterprising scavenger who works the sewers in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger (there is an english biscuit with a jam centre called that). Rita is struggling to make a living to provide for her large number of siblings, and is pursued relentlessly for her "treasure" by a nasty villian called The Toad (Ian McKellen, along with his two henchmen - Whitey (Bill Nighy) and Spike (Andy Serkis). Without giving too much away - the treasure turns out to be worthless, and Roddy promises Rita the real thing if she can get him home to the upper world.
How Roddy is desperate to escape from the sewers, and how he comes to help Rita and the denizens of this underground metropolis...and also how he comes to value a life less lonely takes the viewer through a laughter-filled 84 minutes. Filled with movie (and Aardman) references - don't blink, else you will miss them - this film is great fun for the little ones with enough adult references to keep the adults engaged. A very good rollicking tale well worth going along to see.
Lookout for Le Frog (Jean Reno) and his team of ninja frogs...and also for the delightful singing slugs - stay for the end credits as we did and you will see an extra scene where the family come home, and a funny one-liner that cracked us up (but had our friend, who does not normally sit through to the very end credits, grumbling! Worth it just for his face alone!)
As Wallace would say - "A cracking good time!" Rating a definite 8 out of 10!
NB:For the record, and as quoted on IMDB - those who are missing out this movie due to it being Aardman's first fully-CGI feature film are not doing themselves a favour because the reason for using computer animation instead of the studio's trademark clay animation was the large amount of scenes involving water, which is nearly impossible to do convincingly in stop motion.
For further reading, consult the Wikipedia Entry!
What happens when you cross Dreamworks with Aardman? You get one very high quality, charming and entertaining children's film that adults are more than happy to sit through. For me - british humour at it's best! (Rated PG - 12+ for some mild language and violence)
Out last night with a couple of friends of ours - we first hit "Waggamama's" (a not too bad/reasonably priced Noodle Bar here in Manchester) then availed ourselves of Orange Wednesday's "Two For One" Film Offer.
The story concerns Roddy St James (Hugh Jackman), an upper crust pampered pet rodent living in posh Kensington, who is left at home whilst his owners go on a holiday. Whilst enjoying the run of the home - into his life hurtles Sid (Shane Ritchie), a sewer rat spewed up via the kitchen sink who thinks he's hit the bigtime and proceeds to make himself at home. Roddy, protective of both his space and his owners' possessions, tries to rid himself of the obnoxious Sid by luring him to the "Jacuzzi" (in actual fact - the toilet). Sid is not so thick however, and proceeds to follow the movie title...
Our poor hapless Roddy ends up dumped down the sewers into a duplicate underground London, complete with dodgy geezers, and american (rat) tourists! It is here that Roddy meets up with Rita (Kate Winslett), an enterprising scavenger who works the sewers in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger (there is an english biscuit with a jam centre called that). Rita is struggling to make a living to provide for her large number of siblings, and is pursued relentlessly for her "treasure" by a nasty villian called The Toad (Ian McKellen, along with his two henchmen - Whitey (Bill Nighy) and Spike (Andy Serkis). Without giving too much away - the treasure turns out to be worthless, and Roddy promises Rita the real thing if she can get him home to the upper world.
How Roddy is desperate to escape from the sewers, and how he comes to help Rita and the denizens of this underground metropolis...and also how he comes to value a life less lonely takes the viewer through a laughter-filled 84 minutes. Filled with movie (and Aardman) references - don't blink, else you will miss them - this film is great fun for the little ones with enough adult references to keep the adults engaged. A very good rollicking tale well worth going along to see.
Lookout for Le Frog (Jean Reno) and his team of ninja frogs...and also for the delightful singing slugs - stay for the end credits as we did and you will see an extra scene where the family come home, and a funny one-liner that cracked us up (but had our friend, who does not normally sit through to the very end credits, grumbling! Worth it just for his face alone!)
As Wallace would say - "A cracking good time!" Rating a definite 8 out of 10!
NB:For the record, and as quoted on IMDB - those who are missing out this movie due to it being Aardman's first fully-CGI feature film are not doing themselves a favour because the reason for using computer animation instead of the studio's trademark clay animation was the large amount of scenes involving water, which is nearly impossible to do convincingly in stop motion.
For further reading, consult the Wikipedia Entry!