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Scott, used to overseeing weighty projects, tries to pump up this slender tale into something more meaningful: His tactic of choice is to bully us into always feeling something, which leads to an astonishing amount of clumsy comedy and overreaching sentiment. Crowe, on the same wavelength as his director, responds by oozing charm in every scene, a decision that makes it all the more difficult to accept the fact that his character is initially supposed to be a heartless profiteer; he's patterned after Gordon Gekko but instead comes off as one of W.C. Fields' lovable curmudgeons. Minor annoyances such as these pop up throughout the picture, but then along comes another cheesecake shot of gorgeous wine country, and whoops, off scampers our one-track mind.
IT'S A TEXTBOOK Faustian example of selling one's soul to the devil. Great Britain's Aardman Animations, the studio behind the delightful Wallace & Gromit films, has always ignored the American modus operandi of churning out loud and obnoxious toon flicks by sticking to its veddy British guns and producing works that relied on clay animation rather than CGI and clarity instead of chaos. After beginning its partnership with Hollywood's DreamWorks studio, Aardman stuck to its guns with the charming Chicken Run. Flushed Away, however, reveals that the devil is starting to collect his due.
The story of a pet mouse who gets flushed down the toilet and ends up in an underground city populated by rats, frogs, slugs and other critters, the film exhibits the frenzied pace and overbearing characterizations that have become standard in U.S.-born-and-bred animated features. The voice casting (Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, for starters) rests somewhere between Pixar inspiration and everybody else's laziness, but the story is strictly perfunctory -- and further hampered by the sort of puerile gags that have come to define Yankee toon flicks (lots of blows to the crotch in this one).
Where the Aardman wit is retained -- and what significantly elevates the film's worth -- is in the small details, tossed-off asides and background imagery. The main action may move forward in fits and starts, but keep your eyes on the margins and you'll remain satisfied. I laughed out loud at the briefly glimpsed newspaper headline that read, "Pied Piper Leads Thousands To Their Deaths," but I expect each viewer will spot a different favorite among the clutter and cacophony.
WHILE NOT ON the level of 1988's Imagine: John Lennon, the new documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon is nevertheless an engaging and informative film about the period in the life of the former Beatle during which he emerged as a political activist and, consequently, a thorn in the side of the Nixon administration. Convinced that the massive popularity of Lennon would lend voice to the antiwar activists with whom he hobnobbed at the height of the Vietnam conflict, the government sought to have Lennon and his soulmate Yoko Ono tossed out of the country, a lengthy legal battle that ultimately ended in defeat for the right-wing warhawks.
The movie doesn't really cover any new ground or offer up any surprising revelations, but its use of fascinating footage from the period (much of it long unseen) provides it with a potent kick of "you are there" nostalgia. Walter Cronkite, G. Gordon Liddy, Strom Thurmond and Bobby Seale are among those appearing throughout the picture (some filmed then, some shot now, some making appearances in both the past and the present), though Gore Vidal is the only one to point out the obvious similarities between Nixon-era America and Bush-era America ("Lennon represented life ... Nixon, and Bush, represent death").
When contrasted with such raging radicals as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, Lennon seemed like a political lightweight, a point that's repeated by many folks throughout the course of the film. Even Lennon joins the chorus with some self-effacing remarks, insisting that he and Yoko are artists rather than politicians, and that if championing peace over war makes him a clown, then so be it. Yet as we cast a doleful eye at the world today, and as we imagine John Lennon's sincerity in raising the flag for peace and love, I say (with apologies to Stephen Sondheim): Send in the clown.
