Flushed Away is a 2006 computer-animated adventure comedy film directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell, produced by Cecil Kramer, David Sproxton, and Peter Lord, and written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and Will Davies. It was the third and final DreamWorks Animation film co-produced with Aardman Animations following Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and was the first Aardman project completely made in CGI animation as opposed to their usual stop-motion. The film stars the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Shane Richie, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen and Jean Reno. In the film, a pampered pet mouse named Roddy St. James is flushed down the toilet by a sewer rat named Sid, and befriends a scavenger named Rita Malone in order to get back home while evading a sinister toad and his hench-rats.
Plot[]
Roddy St. James is a British pampered pet mouse who lives in a posh Kensington apartment. Roddy relishes in having the place to himself while his owners are gone away on holiday until a sewer rat named Sid spews out of the sink's drain and wants to stay, especially as England is playing against Germany in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final. Roddy decides to get rid of Sid by flushing him down the toilet, but is instead pushed himself by Sid and flushed down the drain.
Roddy finds himself in Ratropolis, a sewer city made out of various bits of junk that resembles London. He is told to seek out Rita Malone, an enterprising scavenger mouse who works the drains in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger who can possibly help him get home. Roddy and Rita are captured by rats Spike and Whitey and brought before their boss, the Toad, as Rita stole back a prized ruby originally scavenged by her father. The Toad plans to have Roddy and Rita frozen with liquid nitrogen, but the pair escape. Rita takes the ruby, and a unique electric master cable required to control Ratropolis' sewer floodgates.
Roddy deduces that the ruby is a fake and easily shatters it, enraging Rita. Roddy offers Rita a real ruby if she takes him back to Kensington, to which she agrees. The pair first stop to visit her family before setting off. During Roddy's stay, he overhears a conversation that causes him to assume that Rita is selling him out to the Toad, so he reneges on the deal and steals the Jammy Dodger. When Rita catches up to him, she is able to clear up the misunderstanding. The pair evade pursuit from Spike, Whitey, and their accomplices.
Incensed at his minions' repeated failures, the Toad sends for his French cousin, Le Frog. It is revealed that the Toad was Prince Charles' favorite childhood pet until he was abruptly replaced by a rat and flushed down a toilet, resulting in his hatred of rodents. Le Frog and his subordinates intercept Roddy and Rita to retrieve the cable, but the duo manages to escape out of the sewer drain and back to Roddy's apartment, though the Jammy Dodger is destroyed.
Roddy pays Rita the promised ruby and an emerald, then shows her around his apartment. She at first believes he has family, but notices his cage and realizes he is a pet and alone. Rita tries to persuade Roddy to come with her, but he is too proud to admit his loneliness and rebuffs her. Rita leaves via the toilet only for her to be captured, with the Toad taking back the master cable. Roddy joins Sid to watch the game. When Sid mentions half-time, Roddy pieces together the Toad's plan: to open the floodgates during half-time of the World Cup, when all the humans will most likely be using their toilets, allowing the ensuing, enormous wave of drainage to destroy Ratropolis, allowing the Toad to use the depopulated city as a home for his tadpole children. Roddy entrusts Sid with his home and cushy position, and has Sid flush him back down the drain again. He frees Rita, and together they defeat the Toad and his henchman by getting Toad and Le Frog’s tongues stuck to moving gears and freeze the wave of drainage with liquid nitrogen. Hailed as a hero, Roddy agrees to stay in Ratropolis with Rita. Soon after, the two, as well as Rita's family, set off on the Jammy Dodger II.
In a mid-credits scene, Roddy's former human owner Tabitha returns home with a new pet cat, frightening Sid.