As a guy who’s never watched The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show nor had much previous knowledge about who Mr. Peabody and Sherman were, I wasn’t too interested in this film when I first heard about it. But, when character art started appearing online as well as the trailer, I became intrigued by the film and was anxious to see it. It actually was on my top 5 films I was most looking forward to in 2014! So, did I end up liking this film as much as I had hoped? Short answer: Yes.
For those who don’t know, this movie is based on the characters of Mr. Peabody and Sherman from the animated 1960s show, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Mr. Peabody was this genius dog who basically did everything a genius would do and even “adopted” a human boy named Sherman. Each episode would have the two of them use a time machine that Mr. Peabody invented (called the WABAC) to go back in time to different eras to learn about history.
This film (directed by Rob Minkoff of Stuart Little, The Haunted Mansion, and The Forbidden Kingdom fame)
“Oh yeah, sorry, I wasn’t sure if my readers had heard of it.”
pretty much keeps all the main points of the show: Mr. Peabody is a genius dog (voiced by Ty Burrell) and Sherman is his young adopted boy (voiced by Max Charles). Together, they use the WABAC to go to various places in time.
But, the movie continues from this point and introduces a new facet to Sherman’s life: school!
Yep, Sherman is now old enough to attend school and when he does, he gets picked on by a girl named Penny (voiced by Ariel Winter), who’s upset at Sherman for knowing so much about history. This gets so out of hand that Penny starts physically bullying Sherman resulting in Sherman biting Penny.
Because of this incident, Mr. Peabody is being threatened to have Sherman taken out of his care by a Children’s Services agent named Mrs. Grunion (voiced by Allison Janney). The reason being that Sherman biting Penny supposedly reflects the immoral canine upbringing of his dog “father”.
And to top that off, Mr. Peabody also has to settle matters with Penny’s parents in order that they don’t take any action against him. So, Mr. Peabody invites Penny’s parents (voiced by Stephen Colbert and Leslie Mann) over to his house for dinner and encourages Sherman to patch things up with Penny.
Long story short, Sherman isn’t supposed to tell Penny about his source of historical knowledge (the WABAC), but he does anyway resulting in Penny getting lost in time and Mr. Peabody and Sherman having to go back in time to various eras including Ancient Egypt, the Renaissance, and the Trojan War to set matters aright.
As you can see, this movie has one word to describe it: fun! It’s just a fun film as most time travel movies are!
The animation is nothing intricate, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s rich and fulfilling for the type of film that it is. The plot and time travel mumbo-jumbo are explained quite well for a kid’s film. The humor is quite good for a Dreamworks Animation film in my opinion. Yes, it does have the occasional low-brow humor,
but it also has jokes for adults that are actually quite good.
So, is this to say that this movie is simply perfection? No, not at all. It has its problems. For example, even though the plot is pretty well explained, it doesn’t save the movie from a bunch of plotholes. Then again, which time travel movie DOESN’T have plotholes?
None of the voice acting is anything spectacular, in my opinion, but none is anything bad either; it’s just good. All in all, I can see myself watching this film a few more times although it’s nowhere near my favorite animated films of all time list!
The Animation Commendation 
I just went on my Reader, and when I clicked on you, it says you have over 200 followers. Congrats.
I don’t remember if you read my review, but I was kind of mixed on this film. Peabody was a complete Gary Stu, and they did not add much to the characters, and the plot was a bit sloppy at times as well. It was somewhat entertaining though. This and Puss and Boots are pretty on par with one another though.
Thanks! But, the way they count my followers is that they count my followers for BOTH of my blogs, so I technically have less than 200 followers, but, oh well, lol.
This movie gave me exactly what I was expecting, so I didn’t have any reason to complain. ‘Puss in Boots’, on the other hand, gave me many reasons to complain!
Well, I am sure that you have more than almost anyone will ever have under 10 blogs. It is still a huge accomplishment you achieved, and in less than 2 years.
I definitely expected Puss in Boots to be a lot better than it was when I finished watching it, so I do not blame you there.
Thanks again!
I told you this movie was good!
I should listen to you more often 😉 !
Most adaptations of things I loved when I was little are terrible so I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Yes it is not a masterpiece but I agree I was very entertained by it. Good script and nearly every joke worked.
My favorite joke was when the Jewish guy was like, “Oy, again with the plagues! Why’d I ever move to Egypt?”
Ha that was very good!
It’s easy to discount a comedy but what they did in Mr Peabody and Sherman is really tough to do
Personally, I’m not even going to watch this one, since it seems like just another attempt to “modernize” a decades-old property (and very rarely has that had good results, in my experience).
I’ve never watched the original show, so I can’t say what that was like, but I honestly didn’t really feel any “modernity” from this film; it is actually one of the few DWA films that feels timeless or at least sorta timeless.