Aardman, the whizzkids behind Wallace & Gromit, make a leap into the world of 3D animation. Working from a script by TV veterans Clemens and La Frenais (Porridge, Auf Wiedersehen Pet), Aardman scores a home-run with this thunderous tale of a mouse that could. Introducing Roddy who, accidentally flushed down the loo, falls into a rodent city that’s blossoming in London’s sewers. His push to get home leads to sexy Rita, a Greek chorus of singing slugs, a megalomaniacal Toad and his cousin Le Frog (French, of course).

Flushed Away plumbs the depths of scatological humour in a remorseless assault on verbal senses. Despite occasionally, er, sluggish moments, it’s on for young and old as Roddy sets about righting wrongs and, hopefully, saving the day. Co-produced by Dreamworks, the film was made entirely at their Californian studios and the trans-Atlantic shift shows. Aardman’s trademark wistfulness has been adjusted with an eye toward international markets. Energy levels are ramped to 11 with an associated, often hysterical, tone.

Although Nick Park, the creative genius behind Aardman’s finest moments is missing, Flushed Away crackles with such wit and splendour you won’t miss Wallace for long. Look closely and nearly all their comforting creatures are here in some fashion anyway. In subverting many clichéd staples, the gags, rude and not so rude, fly thick and fast led by an outrageously camp Toad and his frog-marching partners in crime. A scene in which an amphibian Marcel Marceau mimes with a mobile phone is hilarious beyond words. Roddy’s adventure is something of an Anglophile’s dream and besides, any film built around the notion of a half-time flush for London’s football fans, has got to be a winner.

// COLIN FRASER