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Remember when you were a kid and little stuff appropriated into miniature worlds blew your mind, like Ernie's bug family on Sesame Street using postage stamps for fine art or all the stuff the Little family stole in the series of books by John Peterson? Flushed Away, the first completely CGI movie from Aardman (the production company responsible for Wallace and Gromit), is a visual potluck full of buttons, cans, matchbooks, tubs, and one mechanical hand, all making up an underground community and flick complete with lovely British accents, squeezable rat characters, and a Greek chorus of the freaking cutest slugs ever. Pet rat Roddy (Hugh Jackman) gets flushed from his posh digs by home-invader punk rat Sid (Shane Richie) down to the London sewers, where he meets tough chick Rita (Kate Winslet), a rat with a tricked-out motorboat and a royal ruby to protect her from gross, nasty, and mean Toad (Ian McKellen), who has a jones for anything linked to the palace. There are more fabulous characters-Toad's French relation Le Frog (Jean Reno), his henchmen Spike (Andy Serkis) and Whitey (Bill Nighy), and a frog mime-and subplots and dialogue worthy of the amazing visuals. A prize for all the cool parents forced to endure multiple viewings-thanks, U.K., for offering a nice alternative to the fairy-tale stealing, self-righteous, moralizing, boring crap pushers at Disney. The only lesson here is that being around others is better than being alone.

E-mail Wendy Ward