Originally published in Cinema Knife Fight, September 18, 2015
What’s this, a kids’ movie? Hey, why not…. As
long as a movie can be designated as Science Fiction or Horror, now and then I
might cover those fun kid flicks that we’re forced to watch with the little
ones. Sometimes, they’re actually pretty good!
As is the case this time around. MR. PEABODY &
SHERMAN (2014) is more than good. In fact, I’ll start this review with a
risky statement: it’s FROZEN (2013) for boys.
That’s right. This movie is custom made for boys, complete
with violence, farts, and the hero saving the day in the end. Watch any little
girl watching the tale of Elsa the Snow Queen, and you’ll see how utterly
captivated they are. This is rare for girls, who don’t have the absolute-focus
gene we boys have with movies. MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN (which I’ll
refer to as MP&S) has this same effect on boys (your mileage may
vary, of course). For a few months this year my wife and I had the pleasure of
taking care of a 2-year-old boy named Jacob. He had the attention span of most
2-year-olds, which is pretty limited. Unless this movie was put
on. I’ve never seen anyone so rapt by a movie before, or since (barring,
perhaps, me). Needless to say, Linda and I also had to watch the
movie, in fact about 45 times over the course of three months. Thankfully, it
is a funny, clever and downright fun movie.
MP&S got some bad press when it was released, not
because it was bad, but because people simply didn’t go to see it. It never
recouped its monstrous budget at the box office. I hope it eventually does, via
rentals and streaming. They made a few bucks from us, that’s for
sure.
If you’re younger than, say, thirty-five, you might not know
the original exploits of Mr. Peabody and young Sherman. It was one of the
cartoon shorts comprising THE ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE SHOW (1959–1964),
Rocky being a flying squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose his lovably dopey friend.
Like many of its ilk at the time, the show consisted of multiple cartoons,
anchored by Rocky and Bullwinkle’s. Primarily, we got goofy versions of old
fairy tales (called, aptly, “Fractured Fairy Tales“) and “Peabody and
Sherman.” There might have been others that I no longer remember. The
cartoons were all spastically-edited (I’m guessing to retain kids’ attention
spans, since the animation was subpar, even for its time), pretty funny and
surprisingly intelligent with their humor. “Peabody and Sherman” was my
favorite. A genius dog (I think he’s a fox terrier, but have never been
certain) and his young human assistant travel to the past to learn lessons from
history using a machine called the “Way Back.” When I saw the preview for
a movie version finally coming out, I was excited to see it. Granted, I ended
up being one of the many who never made it to the theaters to see it, to my
loss (would have been awesome in 3D).
The film opens with Mr. Peabody narrating the story of his
vast intelligence (he’s not a humble terrier-ish) and how it isolated him from
other dogs as a puppy so he had to turn to books and learning instead. In this
movie, he’s more than just smart, Peabody is an expert at pretty much
everything. It’s a funny and cute opening scene, ending with the introduction
of his son, Sherman (and answering the decades-old, and decidedly low-priority,
question as to what the relationship was between these two!). A couple of times
in the movie the line, “It’s an adoptive relationship,” is used when anyone
wonders why the boy’s father is a dog. A later series of flashbacks, to the
tune of John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy,” tell the story of how they came to be a
family. All these trips into the past using the newly-spelled WABAC Machine,
are done to teach Sherman’s history and life lessons.
Of course, every time they do this in the film, they nearly
get themselves killed or seriously maimed.
Ty Burrell (Phil from the MODERN FAMILY TV series)
has Mr. Peabody’s voice and inflections down pat (no pun intended). Max Charles
(young Peter Parker in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, 2012) is the perfect
Sherman, voice-wise. The two actors have great timing and chemistry together.
The premise of the film is this: on his first day of school
Sherman is picked on by the popular girl of first grade, Penny (Ariel Winter,
Alex from the MODERN FAMILY TV series). She calls him a dog, because his
dad is a dog. Sherman eventually bites her. In comes a DCF social worker named
Mrs. Grunion, who begins efforts to remove Sherman from Mr. Peabody’s home
because she never believed a dog should have been able to adopt a boy in the
first place. At a dinner party that night to smooth things over with Penny and
her parents, a few complications arise at their penthouse apartment (the dog is
also fabulously wealthy, did I mention that?), including, but not limited to,
unplanned trips to Ancient Egypt, Renaissance Italy and Ancient Troy, and of
course a rip in the space-time continuum.
When I first watched this movie, I did not realize Allison
Janney (THE WEST WING TV series and movies like JUNO, 2007), does
the voice of Mrs. Grunion. It’s that different from her normal
voice. Most of the big-name stars who play characters have altered their voices
enough so that you might have a hard time recognizing them (aside from Burrell,
whose voice is already quite distinctive), and Patrick Warburton (FAMILY GUY
TV series) as the Trojan soldier Agamemnon—Warburton has a cool voice for this
type of character anyway, and is quite funny in this role. There are a lot
of star names—probably why the budget for MP&S was over-the-top
—from the above names, to Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, Stanley Tucci and even
a cameo by Mel Brooks.
Even with this cast, the movie is carried by the talent and
good humor of Burrell and Charles as the title characters. Their interplay is
non-stop throughout, as father and son geniuses who both never quite realize
how much trouble they’re about to get themselves into until they’re almost
in over their heads. They get into a lot of trouble, too. The
screenplay is quick, funny and, like its predecessor, at times quite
intelligent (something for all ages, in other words).
Back to the idea that this is the perfect little boy movie.
There is quite a lot of violence, but the stylized kind you get in cartoons
where the laws of physics go out the window and the good guy always finds a way
out of the predicament. The filmmakers make Mr. Peabody such a genius and
expert at everything, little kids watching should never become
too frightened. After all, the dog never is. His confidence in
his own ability to get them out of deadly peril is so firm, the kiddies can be
excited as they watch without breaking down in terrified sobs. There are also
plenty of well-timed (and sometimes subtle) fart jokes to send any boy falling
over his chair (an example of the more subtle kind, which always makes me
laugh: when P&S are running through the sewers of 18th century France escaping
revolutionaries who want to chop their heads off, Peabody says, “Sherman, do
you smell that?” to which the boy replies, “It wasn’t me, Mr. Peabody.” Maybe
it’s just me, but that’s funny.)
There are also plenty of bad puns, though this is deliberate
and a requirement. The original cartoon always ended in Peabody giving the
moral of the story in the form of a pun. This movie is no exception. In fact,
Peabody spends the entire film throwing puns at Sherman, who never quite gets
the jokes.
This is an animated film, of course, a smooth blending of
true animation with CGI to add depth and a (warped) sense of reality to the
scenes. This was released in 3D at the cinema. If it came back to the theaters,
even after seeing it on the small screen so many times, I’d probably sneak out
to see it. Mr. Peabody and his son Sherman look nearly identical to their
original cartoon incarnations, only better. The expressions, especially on
Sherman’s face, sometimes say more than the dialogue. And the WABAC, instead of
simply a door they step through, is a round ball with wings which soars through
wormholes in space time (“Drop your sword and step away from the futuristic
orb,” is the line you might remember from the trailer). All in all, it’s very
impressive, visually.
Yes, yes, I know it’s a kids’ movie, but it can still have
impressive visual effects. Remember, I’ve seen this more times than the
original STAR WARS (1977) at this point. I have to love
it, or I’ll go mad. Needless to say, the science behind anything you see in MR.
PEABODY & SHERMAN is, simply, wrong. All of it. Not a whit will help
Junior pass his MCAS tests.
Who cares?
The animation and voice acting is top-notch, but I should
give director Bob Minkoff (THE LION KING, 1994, and STUART LITTLE,
1999) credit for the overall experience, including the pacing, which is
non-stop, and overall warm feel of the film. Honestly, when it comes to
animation, I’m a little fuzzy what the director actually does.
He/she works with the animation team and the editors more often, I suppose,
since there aren’t any “location” shots.
If you’re a fan of the original cartoon, this movie will
delight you. I promise. Watch it, even if you’re over forty (which you probably
are if you’re a fan of the original). It’s a modernized, but wonderful homage
to a now-obscure entertainment morsel. If you’ve never heard of the cartoon,
doesn’t matter. You’ll love it just the same.
Unless you’re a girl. Even with little Penny in most of the
scenes, FROZEN will probably still be more your cup of tea. But if
there’s a little boy in your home, or the little boy inside you needs some
entertaining, give this fun, family movie a watch.
I give it 4 knives. If you’re a boy.
(PS: I labored for a couple of hours trying to find a
cute pun to end this review with. No luck. Watch the movie, there’ll be plenty
in there to deal with. If you think of one I could’ve used, let me know in the
comments section.)
© Copyright 2015 by Daniel G. Keohane