Who's in It: The voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Bill Nighy, Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Shane Richie, Jean Reno
The Basics: A pampered, domesticated pet mouse gets flushed into the sewer and realizes how lonely he used to be and how much he enjoys the company of other sewer mice. This is a story well-fed movie stars and such people love to tell themselves — that they'd leave behind their lives of luxury for a stinking hovel if it were for love and family. Ha.
What's the Deal? I'm officially worn out from all the crappy, animated, yapping-critter movies that have been released this year. I'm fed up. And this one shares way too much plot in common with the recent rash of them (domestic animal gets tossed into the wild and learns important stuff) to get away with it. But …
The Good News: It's smarter than all the other 2006 animated movies, save for Monster House; it's better than Cars (and much shorter); it's plain funnier and more clever. Now if they could have just eliminated the Dandy Warhols song from the soundtrack …
Pedigree: It's from Aardman, the people responsible for the Wallace & Gromit shorts, Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Chicken Run. In fact, see whether you can count all the references to W&G hidden in about half a dozen different scenes.
Favorite Throwaway Moment That Kids Won't Get: The cockroach reading The Metamorphosis.