With two big
animated hits from two major studios making waves at the box office, Dreamworks
Animation responds with “Mr. Peabody & Sherman,” a time-traveling adventure
based on the “Peabody’s Improbable History” segments of “The Rocky and
Bullwinkle Show.” Unfortunately, with the bar set pretty high for animated
family movies in the past few months, “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” ultimately
comes up short in comparison.
Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell of “Modern
Family”) is the smartest and most accomplished dog in the world, as shown in
the movie’s opening. Rather than have his adopted son Sherman (Max Charles)
learn history from a book, Peabody takes him to the history through the use of
his time machine called the WABAC (pronounced way-back).
Sherman
starts attending school and gets into a fight with his classmate Penny (Ariel
Winters), who is jealous of Sherman’s knowledge and makes fun of him for being
raised by a dog. Peabody invites Penny and her parents (Leslie Mann and Stephen
Colbert) to their home to settle the issue, but it doesn’t take long for Penny
and Sherman to use the WABAC, resulting in Sherman losing Penny in ancient
Egypt. From there, Peabody and Sherman must rescue Penny and travel through
history to get back to their own time period before their time-travelling
threatens to destroy the space-time continuum.
So
those are the basics of the plot, but I didn’t mention how Peabody’s custody of
Sherman is put in jeopardy, or how there’s a subplot involving Sherman dealing
with issues of identity from being raised by a dog. There’s simply too much
going on in “Mr. Peabody & Sherman,” and it never has time to breathe. The
emotional moments in the story are a nice addition, but they’re few and far
between and never have enough time to sink in.
For
having a voice cast with a lot of comedic talent, “Mr. Peabody & Sherman”
is surprisingly unfunny, at least for my tastes. However, it’s worth noting
that a theater full of families with young kids was eerily silent for the vast
majority of the jokes said throughout the movie. I can count on one hand the
number of times this movie got a solid laugh out of me.
While
“Mr. Peabody and Sherman” has no problem appealing to younger kids, it tries
way too hard to appeal to the adults in the audience. Peabody’s extensive
vocabulary and history knowledge drives most of his jokes, but they’re mostly
used for obvious puns. Kids don’t laugh because they either don’t get the
reference or understand the words being said, and adults don’t laugh simply
because the joke isn’t funny.
There
are tons of jokes that are meant to fly over the heads of kids, but sometimes
the jokes push the boundaries of what they can get away with in a family movie,
and again they’re often not funny.
For
all of these issues, “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” isn’t a total waste. The
animation is great, as expected, although don’t expect the more detailed look
of other Dreamworks offerings like “How to Train Your Dragon” or “The
Croods.” The movie goes for a design
more akin to the original cartoon, and it works to the movie’s advantage. It’s
bright, vivid and often a lot of fun to look at.
The
voice cast also does a fine job, despite the fact that they are given very
little to work with. Ty Burrell does an especially good job as Mr. Peabody,
keeping the movie energized even in its duller moments. While there are some
more stereotypical accents and mannerisms from the historical characters, again
it’s trying to be more like the original cartoon and it didn’t really bother
me.
Although
“Mr. Peabody & Sherman” amounts to little more than some fun sequences
stitched together by tired jokes and half-baked emotional moments, it’s pretty
harmless, and it often does a good job of staying true to the essence of its
source material. With all of these issues, it never gets to the point where
it’s saying anything bad or promoting any bad messages or morals. Considering
other adaptations of classic cartoons that have tried too hard and failed to
appeal to everyone, “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” could have been so much worse
than this.
“Mr.
Peabody & Sherman” no doubt has its moments, but it lacks the involving and
nuanced story and characters of “Frozen” or the consistently sharp humor of
“The Lego Movie” to amount to little more than an afternoon time-waster.
3/5 Stars