Mr. Peabody & Sherman. Rated PG (mild themes and animated
violence). 97 minutes. Directed by Rob Minkoff. Screenplay by Craig Wright.
Verdict: Whatever you do, hold off on the red cordial.
As ‘The End’ appeared on the screen, a little girl sitting down the
front of the cinema yelled ‘Yay!’ with all the enthusiasm it was possible for
her to muster. Such a spontaneous display of joy from members of the audience
for whom films like this are primarily made are, like Mr. Peabody & Sherman
itself, fantastic to witness.
Wright’s action-packed screenplay finds our genius inventor canine Mr.
Peabody threatened with having his adopted human son Sherman removed from his
care by a tyrannical social services bureaucrat, Mrs Grunion (voiced by The
West Wing’s Allison Janney).
Sherman (superbly voiced by 10-year-old Max Charles) has bitten the
school bully Penny (Ariel Winter), so Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell) sets up a
reconciliation dinner party with Penny’s parents and Mrs Grunion. But when
Sherman takes Penny for a spin in the WBAC, Mr. Peabody’s state-of-the-art
time-travelling machine, the past, present and future collide in spectacular
fashion.
Minkoff’s (co-director of The Lion King) command of the story-telling
is astonishing, even if the frenetic pace of the action occasionally threatens
to become overwhelming. Under-pinned by the absurdist premise that a dog should
be legally entitled to adopt a human, Wright’s screenplay and Minkoff’s account
of it, doesn’t hang around in any one part of the world – past, present or
future – long enough for the ridiculousness of it all to deflate the action.
Veteran composer Danny Elfman (who is best known as the composer of The
Simpsons), delivers a marvellous score that powers the visual flights of
inventive science fiction-based fantasy to perfection. Apart from the brilliant
animation on display, the star of the show is Burrell (Modern Family), who finds
an emotional range in his voice work for Mr. Peabody that is outstanding.
This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspapers Group.
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