More whimsy, Gromit? Another cheesy turkey from the clay craftsmen
So it's goodbye to Hollywood from those cute critters at Aardman Animations; the blinking pooch and the rockabilly rodents and the Play-Do skittles with rubber gloves stapled to their heads. Today's shocking news is that DreamWorks has severed its ties with the Bristol-based company, horrified by the speed at which Flushed Away went down the pan.
Appearances, in the case of Aardman, can be deceptive. Just as it turned out that those Play-Do skittles were actually supposed to be chickens, so we now discover that these homemade, cottage industry animations cost a Hollywood fortune to produce. DreamWorks has apparently lost money not just on Flushed Away, but also on 2005's immeasurably more successful Wallace and Gromit movie. Moreover, the peculiarly parochial nature of these films mean that they often struggle to connect with the wider world. Or as Aardman spokesman Arthur Sheriff put it: "We embrace the international market but we think part of our strength is our English sense of humour."
I'm always sceptical of people who claim to possess "an English sense of humour". All too often, they are the same people who insist that Americans have no sense of irony and whose idea of unadulterated hilarity is The Last of the Summer Wine.
But then I've never been a fan of Aardman Animations, that sacred cow of British cinema. I hate their Claymation inhabitants, with their blinking eyes, toothy grimaces and unformed foetus features. I hate their cosy, conservative plots. And while it was obviously terrible when their warehouse burnt down a short while back, I did quite like the image of all those gurning muppets going up like Roman candles; perhaps lashing, biting and clawing at one-another in a desperate bid to escape the flames.
In the interest of fairness, I should admit that I found The Curse of the Were-Rabbit borderline tolerable. Yet even that was prone to the same tendencies - the same Blimpish, self-satisfied whimsy - that bedevilled Chicken Run.
I don't get the appeal of these films; I don't understand the people who like them. The best Hollywood animations (Toy Story, Shrek, The Incredibles) manage to be at once witty, irreverent and affectionate - the sort of kids' films that parents can enjoy. By contrast, the Aardman outings appear to have have somehow skipped a generation. These are the kids' films that grandparents can enjoy (and when I say grandparents, I mean the birch-and-flog-'em variety, not the nice kind).
Anyway, where were we? Oh yes: DreamWorks has ended its deal with Aardman Animations. This presumably means that there will be no more talking skittles - at least for the time being. And surely this must be seen as a blessing, not a curse.
