The apprehension you feel as your kids drag you into the theater to see Mr. Peabody & Sherman is justified. The two-minute TV spot features no less than four butt-related jokes. It’s hard going into one of these CGI-animated kids movies knowing from the outset that they’re aiming to pick the low-hanging fruit as far as comedy is concerned. While Mr. Peabody & Sherman does indeed travel through some pretty murky comedic places, let me allay some of your fears. It isn’t as terrible as you might have thought it could be.
Based off of one of the cartoons that accompanied the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Mr. Peabody & Sherman is exactly the type of movie you’d expect be created from the Peabody’s Improbably History segments. Only instead of the flat, but loveable, 2D animation, Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell) and his son Sherman (Max Charles) have been rendered into 3D CG-animation because very little is hand drawn anymore.
Peabody is a beagle, but an extremely smart one. None of the kids wanted to adopt a dog who was smarter and more sarcastic than them. Instead Peabody spent his time learning and building a time machine called the WABAC (or Wayback Machine).
The backstory of our two characters is covered rather fast in a glossy montage. Mr. Peabody, not only the world’s smartest dog but pretty much the world’s smartest anything, decides he’d like to adopt an orphaned child. In the words of the judge, “If a boy can adopt a dog, I see no reason why a dog can’t adopt a boy.” But not everyone feels like Mr. Peabody should have the right to be raising a human child, especially when Sherman starts biting bullies at school. Is he learning this behavior from his father? A large intimidating social worker named Ms. Grunion (Allison Janney) is sent in to find out if Mr. Peabody is an unfit parent.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman is congenial enough. The first half of the movie is strictly pun humor. Although whenever Mr. Peabody comes up with another groan-inducing pun, he announces it in such a way that the movie is calling attention to how groan-worthy the pun is. So, at least the movie has a sense of humor about itself.
Mr. Peabody and Sherman time travel in the WABAC machine. They’ve been to the Renaissance, the Ice Age and the French Revolution. Plucky little Sherman even takes to correcting his history teacher. “George Washington didn’t really cut down a cherry tree. That story’s apocryphal,” he declares.
Sherman and his gangly nerdiness is the best thing about the movie. He’s immensely endearing as the unfortunate geek who happened to be adopted by a dog. Obviously, you can see why the poor kid is humiliated at school by bullies. The bully, Penny (Ariel Winter), picks on Sherman incessantly.
There are a few running gags that’d I’d prefer not to spoil because they really are quite clever. While much of the first half feels like an exercise in simply trying to keep kids in their seats, the second half has a lot more of the intelligent humor. Well, intelligent is relative here. The humor in the second half is intelligent when comparing it to the first.
The film isn’t a total bore, so parents could find themselves mildly entertained. The kids in the audience of the screening I attended were attentive and fixated on the story and its vividly colored animation. I somewhat enjoyed most of Mr. Peabody & Sherman, but I already feel myself forgetting everything about it.
