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Disaster epics and teen dramas are mashed up in "My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea," a kaleidoscopic animated film by one-man band Dash Shaw — the movie's director, writer, animator and onscreen hero.

The movie's Dash Shaw (voiced by Jason Schwartzman) is a sophomore at Tides High School and a legend in his own mind. He's one of the school outcasts who writes, with his best-and-only friend Assaf (voiced by Reggie Watts), the school's underground newspaper. The paper's editor, Verti, (voiced by Maya Rudolph), works hard to keep the boys' sensationalist stories in line — and suggests they start writing separately.

Dash sees Verti's suggestion as a wedge between the best friends. This suspicion is enhanced when he thinks Assaf and Verti are starting to fall for each other. Dash retaliates by printing his own paper, spreading gossip about Assaf and Verti — a move that gets him suspended from the paper by Principal Grimm (voiced by Thomas Jay Ryan).

Dash tries to sneak into Grimm's files to find his permanent record and uncovers something more sinister: evidence that Grimm's plan to construct an auditorium on the school's attic floor is structurally unsound, and that when the fault line under the school shakes, the cliff on which the school sits will crumble — and the school will fall into the ocean.

Sure enough, that's what happens, and Dash, Assaf, Verti and Mary (voiced by Lena Dunham) must escape the rapidly flooding sophomore floor. Moving up through the junior floor and senior floor, they find dangers of all kinds. They also find a hero in Lunch Lady Lorraine (voiced by Susan Sarandon), whose kung fu abilities surpass her cooking skills.

Shaw, whose short film "Seraph" played at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, labored on this movie for seven years, and there's a charming handmade quality to every frame. He uses an array of colors and styles to capture the chaos of the sinking school. That look is offset by his characters, rendered in thick black lines with the elegant simplicity of a child's drawings.

The storytelling, though, is neither simplistic nor childlike. With sly nods to disaster epics like "The Poseidon Adventure" and teen-angst dramas like "The Breakfast Club," Shaw dissects the social strata of high-school life and the powerlessness felt by those on the bottom. He also gets strong work from his voice cast, particularly Schwartzman, who channels his "Rushmore" overachiever into Dash's proclamations of greatness.

"My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea" is so overloaded with dazzling color that Shaw helpfully opens with a warning that the strobing effects could set off epileptic seizures in some viewers. With that caveat, viewers should find the movie a welcome departure from the usual summer movie fare.

Twitter: @moviecricket —

HHH

'My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea'

Teens try to survive flooding and other perils in this animated send-up of disaster flicks and teen dramas.

Where • Tower Theatre.

When • Opens Friday, May 26.

Rating • PG-13 for some images of peril, sexual references and drug material.

Running time • 76 minutes.