Flushed Away!

If you're familiar with animations, you'll probably have guessed what I'm going to yak about this time.

Yes, it's that kiddie movie featuring rodent heroes in a sewere somewhere in London. My kids love it and I think they must have watched it at least 20 times since we borrowed the DVD from a close friend last week. I just hope we can return it undamaged!

The funny thing is, I actually had to force my son, Joshua, to watch it in the beginning. You see, we'd run out of kiddie movies to rent from our local video store. So I rummaged through my friend's personal collection of DVDs (she's got 4 kids of her own, so her collection is pretty impressive) and found quite a handful of movies that I thought my kids would enjoy as well.

I've recently become a huge fan of Hugh Jackman, so I thought Flushed Away, which featured Jackman's voice as Roddy, would be something both my kids and I could enjoy.

Joanne was pretty receptive to the idea of watching mice in action. Joshua, however, balked at the thought of seeing mice running around in a sewer. He associated the sewer with all things filthy - urine, excrement, rubbish and all sorts of waste. He was right of course. But it was quite a popular animated movie. So I played the movie while he protested violently.

Despite muttering "eeww", "yuck" and "eeek" a dozen times in the beginning when Roddy first got flushed down his toilet, Joshua slowly warmed to the show. He was enthralled by the action sequences and how the mice outwitted the toads and frogs. Joanne loved the show for another reason - the "girl mouse" Rita, voiced by Kate Winslet - was a lot more streetwise and braver than the "boy mouse". Go girl, go!

By the time the show ended, both kids wanted to watch it again, much to my surprise. And they have been watching it EVERYDAY since the day we borrowed it. I have an feeling I may have to buy the DVD myself - possibly 2 copies - one for my kids and one for my friend since it's likely her DVD is going kaput soon.

As for me, I'm crazy about Hugh Jackman but listening to him as a mouse doesn't hold that much appeal. Show me the man in the flesh anytime, but not as a mouse or a penguin!

Oh, the moral of the story? Don't say no before you've sampled something. It could well turn out to be something exciting. Just ask Joshua. He'll vouch for it. And now, I can use the same principle to get him to do other things he's not too keen on. Hopefully it works.