They may have started in the 1970's. But it wasn't until the late 1980's that we saw them breakthrough into becoming the national treasures they are today.
It saw the first of four Wallace & Gromit shorts, in where all of them at least got an Oscar nomination.
Then in 2000, we saw Aardman's first feature film with the brilliant Chicken Run. Five years later, we saw Wallace & Gromit's first and only feature with The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. Since then, we have now had a regular in-take of feature film releases from this highly successful British studio.
With all that quality, you're expectations are naturally high as they've created many timeless classics.
Despite all that, the trailers and marketing for this had pretty confident we were in for another treat. Now I would love to say this was true. But sadly, I can't.
But don't panic, there is nothing bad about it. It's just there is very little strong content.
The intro is pretty cool as it pays a mini homage to Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures. That certainly settled me down. Sadly, that for me was the high point of the film.
It moves along at a decent pace and the story had me interested, despite having worries that it might not win everyone over, especially American audiences. Te rest of the film just plods along with ok comedic moments and ends as you would expect it to with this extremely standard plot.
A lot of the set-pieces showed big similarities from Shaolin Soccer, Mean Machine, The Longest Yard whilst mixing in obvious bits of One Million Years B.C.
I just could not believe by the end of it that I would be so disappointed in what I saw. For such a reliable studio to make something that is satisfactory at best really surprised me.
What I did like, and will forever like is the claymation technique. It takes years of care to complete one film, and it is shown in this, as it is with all of their projects.
Another thing you can rely on with an Aardman film, is the comedy. Aardman Animation live off slapstick gags and witty British humor and most of the gags worked rather well. That included some running ones that always hit the mark. The rest were fine. But sadly overall, they never got me chuckling as much as I have done in previous films.
So while the film is perfectly fine, you expect so much more. Everything just felt rather ordinary. From the story structure, to the gags and the character archs. There was just very little that I will remember from this. Therefore we are in the territory of Flushed Away, which I see as the very bottom of the best films from Aardman Animations.
If I was being like a stereotype critic, I would say "much like it's characters, it felt very primitive."
Rating: 7/10
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