Por Água Abaixo

Actually, a lot about the film is certified cool, from its whirly animation to the hordes of crunchy pop songs on the soundtrack.

Though Flushed Away duplicates the stop-motion, clay animation look of Aardman's earlier Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit, it was made using computer software and its liberated action sequences are truly dazzling.

Most of the fun is in the deft characterizations, the zippy banter, and the joyous sight gags

...It's rat-a-tat pop culture references, but consistently hilarious.

Flushed Away is more fun than a bushel of slugs in a sewer. And considering the slugs in this sewer, that's saying quite a bit.

As some other witty Brits once promised, a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

How this thing got made in Hollywood is a mystery, but I laughed at most of it, especially the mean stereotypes about the French and the even meaner stereotype about England's soccer team.

Like a mouse on a spinning wheel, it's a film that moves at a breakneck pace but ultimately goes nowhere.

Settles for a more modest level than Aardman's previous efforts. Strong on visual invention and wacky humor but light on story and characterization, it's about on the level of a Blue Sky feature, in particular recalling Robots.

A witty combination of jokes for both adults and kids.

They try a little too hard. All this frantic action...

...This puckish charmer about a posh Kensington mouse flushed down the loo into London sewer country is to action-adventure what Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was to Hammer Horror.

Fans of Wallace and Gromit may be puzzled by a visual disconnect in Flushed Away. They will certainly, however, be delighted by the unrelenting whimsy and fast-paced gags of a story that never slows down to think about where it's going next.

Little kids are sure to be bowled over by Roddy's reluctant heroism and Rita's resourcefulness, while the more grown up among us should appreciate the gleeful pokes at pop culture and Anglo-French relations.

The animation, computer-generated as opposed to Aardman's signature claymation style, pops with clever visual touches, and the voice cast, led by the omnipresent and ever likable Hugh Jackman as Roddy, is first-rate.

The short attention spans of directors David Bowers and Sam Fell are mostly forgivable because the movie is filled with so many entertaining characters.

The chatter is as zingy for the adults in the theater as the action is zippy for the kiddies.

Kids will probably be in stinky-sewage heaven with the new computer-animated critter comedy Flushed Away, but even they may realize they're up the proverbial creek in a boat with a faulty motor.

Flushed Away is this year's wittiest animated adventure saga.

Deficient in the comedy of reticence discouragement that is Aardman's (or maybe just Nick Park's) unique strength. I don't want to say the Englishmen were corrupted, but I think they allowed their strongest, quirkiest instincts to be tethered.