YMMV / Flushed Away

• Adorkable:
  • Whitey. He's not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, or in the movie, but that doesn't stop him from being a cute, giant albino rat.
  • The Toad. He likes to show off his collection with giddiness.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Liam, Rita's brother, is a dirty rotten sellout. Think about it. He pointed out that Roddy was wanted by the Toad, complete with a phone number. Then, someone phoned Thimblenose Ted. Ted doesn't say who. Just "a tipoff." Who, oh who, could've ratted Roddy out? Then again, he did believe that Roddy was a criminal using them to hide.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Roddy getting a Groin Attack? Not funny. Roddy getting hit in the groin five times in a row? And then hit with a soccer ball afterwards? That's funny.
• Cry for the Devil: Toad is a Bad Boss who hates all rats and wants to drown them by flooding their entire city. But one could not help from feeling even the tiniest bit of pity for him after learning he used to be a human's beloved pet until a rat replaced him and got flushed down the toilet.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Spike's Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique of using a creepy nutcracker doll he calls 'The Persuader' which scares Rita, Roddy and Whitey is doubly amusing when one remembers that the Nutcracker's sworn enemies are the Mouse (sometimes Rat) King and his army, thus the Nutcracker figure is something of a boogeyman to mice and rats.
  • The cockroach behind the fridge can briefly be seen reading Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Even better because it's in French.
  • When the Toad's collection gets destroyed, a teacup in the shape of Queen Victoria's head is knocked over by a plate of King Edward VII. They were mother and son and had a famously tense relationship where she blamed him for the death of her beloved husband and held a grudge for the rest of her life while he later launched a failed attempt at elbowing her aside so he could reign as regent.
  • As pointed out in this thread on Reddit, at the beginning of the movie when Roddy dances to Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself", he presses play on the boombox to Track 2. "Dancing with Myself" was Track 2 on the album Vital Idol.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Roddy being a James Bond fan is ironic in the Italian dub considering that he got dubbed by Francesco Prado, who would go on to dub Daniel Craig's iteration of Bond in his films.
  • So, a movie with a protagonist played by Hugh Jackman who is helped out by a red-haired action girl, and is pursued by the assassins of a villain intent on using a coveted power source he's carrying for his own personal gain. Are we talking about Flushed Away, or The Wolverine?
  • England gets to the World Cup Finale... then loses on penalties. In Euro 2020 England got to the final match, but lost on penalties to Italy.
  • If the scene with Roddy choosing between a Wolverine outfit or Elvis-like outfit and the fact that Paramount Pictures distributed this film are anything to come by, this somewhat foreshadows Paramount distributing the first row of Marvel Cinematic Universe films. Not only that, but Paramount would be succeeded by 20th Century (distributor of the X-Men Film Series), who would distribute the following films in 2013.
  • The Toad eventually gains French ninja frogs as henchmen.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Sid is often the target of disdain for being little more than a Gasshole Jerkass whose sole purpose is to make Roddy's life miserable, whereas the Toad and LeFrog are beloved characters for how charming they are as antagonists; having much more sympathetic moments for all the bad that they do.
• Magnificent Bastard: Rita Malone is the captain of the Jammy Rodger and Roddy's eventual Love Interest within the movie. Rita has shown herself to have all sorts of tricks up her sleeve, often outsmarting whatever henchmen the Toad sics on her with wit and skill. While she does have a really rocky start with Roddy, having gotten him in trouble with the Toad's henchmen by lying about him being a professional jewel thief and stealing her ruby in order to divert the Toad's henchmen away from her and hide the real ruby, this nearly getting Roddy's head crushed by a nutcracker Spike had which while not something Rita was explicitly aware of is something she knew was happening right in front of her and doing nothing to stop it as it was happening, and also attempting to leave him to the Toad's henchmen as she escapes, she does end up warming up, starting off by accepting an offer he made to get her another ruby in exchange for her getting him home and winds up developing a romantic bond with him in the process while effectively proving to be a heroic character by saving Roddy and her from the Toad's henchmen and assisting Roddy in saving all of Ratropolis from being drowned by a flood that the Toad summoned in.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Huzzah! A man of quality!" ^ExplanationToad's reaction to finding out Rodney lived in an affluent area of Britain like him. Typically used to commend people for their good actions, whatever that may be.
  • "I saw an opportunity, and I seized it." ^ExplanationWhitey's taking advantage of a deflating balloon's sound to covertly pass some gas. Used as a reaction meme for, well, seeing an opportunity and seizing it.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Not a bad little game. No bugs, some obviously incomplete areas, but the speedboating is fun. Only problem is the platforming's a bit difficult. Big plus on presentation values, as the CGI models from the movie could be re-used for the game.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Hugh Jackman, who voices Roddy, has played Wolverine in the X-Men Film Series. Ian McKellen, who voices the Toad, has also worked with Jackman on the film series, with him playing Magneto. So in a way, Roddy has fought the Toad before, just on a different scale.
    • To take it further, one of Magneto's henchman is a squat, rather loathsome fellow named Toad, even possessing the same sort of utilitarian prehensile tongue.
  • The film got flack for switching from stop-motion to CGI, despite Aardman having used CGI in many of their advertisements. You can forgive Americans, though, as most of these ads have only aired in England.
  • The slugs are proto-Minions.
• The Scrappy: Not too many people are fond of Sid, mostly due to him being perceived as a plot device whose entire character is basically an intrusive and crude slob.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: More than a few fans were ticked off at the film being CGI rather than Aardman's trademark claymation style. At least one article at the time compared it to when Bob Dylan started playing electric guitar.
• Tough Act to Follow: Though not universally beloved, it was still well received by critics and popular with fans, two things that can't be said about any of the features Aardman has since made without DreamWorks, save the Cult Classic Arthur Christmas and the critically adored Shaun the Sheep: The Movie. Even fans who were happy to see the studio get out from under DreamWorks' thumb have said that none of the films Aardman has made since with its rotating cast of distributors have been anywhere near as memorable those made with DreamWorks, resulting in their declining popularity in America (not helped by rather poor marketing on the distributor's part).
• Visual Effects of Awesome: To say nothing else of the rest of the film, the animators took great effort to give the animation a "jerky" stop-motion look and texture resembling clay. At times, it actually looks like stop-motion.

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