Review of Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) by Harry W — 05 Oct 2014

Being a popular animated film featuring the voice of Ty Burrell in the lead, Mr. Peabody & Sherman sounded like an interesting feature.

Usually with animated films, viewers are given some time to understand who the characters are and the context of their universe before the adventure begins. With Mr. Peabody & Sherman, before 10 minutes of the film are finished, Mr. Peabody is already pushed through a rushed explanation of his character. Within another 10 minutes, Sherman is made to experience the standard bullying storry trope of the first day at school followed by a sentimental montage of flashbacks. All in all, the pace in Mr. Peabody & Sherman is consistently very rushed in its pace as it dashes through various points in history as welel as other elements of the story, so it goes by fairly quickly.

And in terms of the story, Mr. Peabody & Sherman is far from perfect. Mr. Peabody & Sherman features dated source material. By that I mean the structure of the script has a lot of messages which are made fairly obvious. They are delivered in a manner largely similar to the 1959-1964 series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show where the characters Mr. Peabody & Sherman were originated and used to teach historical education to young audiences, and a lot of that carries over into the film. The only thing is that the pace of the film only gives viewers a certain amount of time to take it all in, and at the same time the intention of the story is to have educational elements as part of its subtext, so the dated educational theme of the film uneasily mixes with the contemporary story in Mr. Peabody & Sherman. And at the same time, there are a lot of points in time that aren't precisely explained that clearly and leaves viewers to determine it strictly on what they may have been educated on prior to seeing Mr. Peabody & Sherman. But considering that it is most likely younger audiences who will be watching the film, there is a lot of jokes they are unlikely to get and so much of the juvenile humour is to be aimed at them while older viewers may not find the latter that clever. So the specific target demographic of Mr. Peabody & Sherman is rather uncertain. For me, I got most of the jokes due to countless films, cultural references and classes through high school so I would be one of the intended audience members of the film, yet even then I found many flaws in the film and that the entertainment value was only able to go so far.

The other issue in the story is that there are so many cliches to it. I kind of expected it, but still, Mr. Peabody & Sherman has so many tropes to it ranging from the relationship developing between the central male and female characters of the story which is also combined with the friendship formed between him and his bully as they are the same character. There is the same basic troubled father son relationship explored in Mr. Peabody & Sherman as well, albeit with only light emphasis on the fact that the father is in fact a dog which could have been the source of a lot more humour that there ended up being. All in all, Mr. Peabody & Sherman has a lot of predictable elements to it which is strange considering the completely wacky storyline entailed in it. So there are many concepts in Mr. Peabody & Sherman which are not fully capitalized on.

But I honestly did enjoy the film. I didn't laugh at Mr. Peabody & Sherman as much as I had hoped due to its childish nature, but the general charm of the protagonist Mr. Peabody is undeniable. Much of the humour in the film is inconsistent, but a lot of the childish nature proves to be charming enough mainly because of the way that Craig Wright's screenplay characterizes Mr. Peabody as he does it in a fashion which befittingly pays tribute to the popular animated character of the 60's. He is animated well and given a lot of clever lines, but most importantly the responsibility of handling him is given to Ty Burrell. The legndary comedian from the popular comedy series Modern Family takes on the role of the iconic genius dog in Mr. Peabody & Sherman which is perfect because he says every single line with the ideal comical sophistication. Ty Burrell leads Mr. Peabody & Sherman excellently with his top notch line delivery in Mr. Peabody & Sherman and he makes the comic energy of the feature really easy to grasp, so he is one of the finest aspects of the film as well as the most certainly pivotal voice cast member, dealing justice to Mr. Peabody easily. Patrick Warburton is the other standout as his comic charisma always makes him a genial presence in an animated film.

And the other great aspect of Mr. Peabody & Sherman is the animation. While the design of a lot of the characters aside from Mr. Peabody is rather familiar, the design of the universe is beautiful because of the way that the animation recreates a lot of different phases in time with beautiful colour and exceptional detail. Everything looks excellent and the characters move flawlessly organically. But the thing that makes Mr. Peabody & Sherman standout from other animated films from a visual perspective is the way that it incorporates so many different points in history into the story. Ranging from modern day New York to Ancient Egypt and beyond, Mr. Peabody & Sherman has a versatile collection of scenarious which are animated with excellence and make the film a memorable experience, as well as the fact that some of the more science fiction themed moments are really good looking. The spirit of this all is also helped out thanks to the fine musical score which adds another positive technical characteristic to the film.

So thanks to beautiful animation, childish spirit and an excellent leading performance from Ty Burrell as Mr. Peabody, Mr. Peabody & Sherman serves as a mostly entertaining animated film which transcends most of the issues regarding pacing, narrative tropes and the some of the more dated elements.