Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2014) review

(8/10)

This obscured-to-me revamp of an old cartoon was way more than I predicted with a little something for all ages, a nice cast, and a sense of fun adventure embedded.

PLOT:Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell) is a wealthy, smart, and famous dog in the world of most fields of education, with an adopted son, Sherman (Max Charles). The two go on several crazy adventures all the time in a time machine Mr. Peabody invented called the WABAC. Things are going normal for the two until Sherman's first day of school, where a girl bullies him and he bites her to fight her off. Things start getting complicated when Mrs. Grunion (Allison Jenner), a mean-spirited social services worker, decides to stop by Peabody and Sherman's house to investigate. To patch things up, Mr. Peabody invites Penny (Ariel Winter), the girl Sherman bit, and her parents (Ellie Kemper and Stephen Colbert) over for dinner to make up for things. Sherman and Penny are still against each other, but things start to change when Sherman disobeys his dad and shows Penny the WABAC. From there on out, things get very complicated. It's a good plot executed very well.



VOICES:The voice acting in here was pretty well done. Ty Burrell voiced the part of Mr. Peabody excellently, putting a good, matching personality. The younger performances from Max Charles and Ariel Winter were alright, but easily separated from the rest. The cameo voices and supporting cast is mainly what takes the cake. Stephen Colbert, Stanley Tucci, Mel Brooks, and Patrick Warburton all played excellent parts as Paul Peterson, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and Agamemnon. All of the supporting cast was definitely very well chosen. The voices overall were pretty entertaining.

SCORE:The score was interesting, detailed, and very well done by the great Danny Elfman, with cameos by John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix.

ANIMATION:The animation was very fun and pretty detailed in a cartoonish sense. The animation of the past history, the WABAC, Mr. Peabody's plans, and even the characters faces were just well done, with every piece falling right into its place.



OTHER CONTENT:This was definitely a fun-filled movie with many references peppered throughout its length, from a Spartacus in a crowd of people to a flash of classic rock in the midst of dinner. The movie is definitely made for a wide age range, including reference humor for the older generation, familiar things for the middle generation, and even juvenile potty humor for the younger generation. The movie, however, isn't perfect by all means. The plot is just impossibility stacked on impossibility, making the whole aspect of time travel seem overdone. The humor also seems so wide that it isn't sure which generation it wants to please the most. This is a good, fun viewing, but it's nowhere near the best family animation.

OVERALL,a great revamp with a well done plot, excellent voice acting, interesting Elfman score, detailed and cartoony animation, many references, and a wide target audience, but the plot seems to overdone in convoluted time travel aspects and the humor doesn't seem to know who it wants to please.