Four stars. Rating: Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild action and brief rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.7.14
As soon as I heard the first pun,
I knew we were in good hands.
 |
| Stuck in Ancient Egypt, with the furious King Tut's guards in hot pursuit, Mr. Peabody leads Sherman and Penny back to where he parked their Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, escape won't be anywhere near that easy... |
Sandpaper-dry wit was an essential
element of the Peabody’s Improbable History cartoon shorts, which debuted as
a portion of the original Rocky and his Friends animated series (ahem) way
back in November 1959. The Einstein-smart canine, Mr. Peabody, always capped
one of his time-travel lecture/adventures with a groaningly awful pun, which
flew right over the heads of younger viewers (and demonstrated the degree to
which the cartoon show’s humor played to adults).
This phenomenon is addressed in
this new big-screen delight, as young Sherman reacts to each of Mr. Peabody’s deadpan
observations by reflexively laughing, and then, with a puzzled expression,
saying “I don’t get it.”
Definitely a chuckle, every time.
Director Rob Minkoff and scripter
Craig Wright have retained the wit and playful innocence of the original Peabody TV cartoon shorts, while adding a generous dollop of the snarky humor
today’s viewers will recognize from the Shrek series. (No surprise, since
this new Mr. Peabody & Sherman comes from DreamWorks Animation.)
And the worried Peabody purists
out there can rest easy, because Wright clearly understands and employs the
narrative and comic sensibilities that properly honor the source material. He
gets it.
As further aided and abetted by
Minkoff and editor Tom Finan’s zippy pacing, not to mention a droll voice cast,
the resulting film is 92 minutes of inventive, larkish delight.
The core premise is that Mr.
Peabody (voiced with polite know-it-all-ness by Ty Burrell) is a genius dog who
is able to master any craft, skill or intellectual challenge he chooses to
embrace. He can out-deduce Sherlock Holmes, and out-MacGyver MacGyver, when it
comes to escaping from a hopeless situation.
Genius doesn’t confer
companionship, though, so — some years back — Mr. Peabody adopted a foundling
infant who now has grown to kidhood. Thus, the core joke: Instead of the usual
boy/dog dynamic, these two always are introduced as Mr. Peabody and his boy,
Sherman (superbly voiced by Max Charles, of TV’s The Neighbors).
Wanting the boy to receive a
proper education until the public school system can take over, Peabody invents
a high-tech gizmo he dubs the “Wayback Machine” — initially WABAC in the
original TV series, as a sly reference to the primitive UNIVAC computer that was
making waves in the 1950s — a time-traveling device that allows Sherman to
learn history first-hand, from those who made it.
This film opens with just such a
trip, as Peabody takes Sherman to the 18th century and the eve of the French
Revolution, where the boy discovers that a purely innocent remark by Marie
Antoinette — responding to a request for dessert — sparks the revolt against
the monarchy.
Proving, Peabody gravely
explains, that poor Marie “couldn’t have her cake and edict, too.”
Ya gotta love it.
Unfortunately, Sherman’s
in-person exposure to history proves troublesome when he enters school for the
first time, unwittingly showing up a classmate who recites the apocryphal
canard about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree. The humiliated little
girl is bratty Penny Peterson (Ariel Winter, of TV’s Modern Family), who
rules their elementary school with the snooty authority of a little bee-yatch.
One thing leads to another, and
suddenly Sherman’s very presence in Peabody’s household is threatened by the
imperious Miss Grunion (Allison Janney), a representative of the Bureau of
Child Safety and Protection, and a people-purist who cannot abide the thought
of a little boy being raised by a (shudder) dog.
Worse yet, the ill-behaved Penny
has conned Sherman into demonstrating the Wayback Machine — something Peabody
warned the boy never, ever to do — and gotten herself betrothed to 9-year-old
King Tut, back in ancient Egypt. Little realizing what happens to an Egyptian
king’s wife, once he dies.
The resulting calamity expands to
engulf all sorts of historical figures and hops through the ages, not to
mention an increasingly dangerous time-travel paradox/anomaly that might even
stump a certain Gallifreyan and his adventure-spanning TARDIS.
Along the way, Wright — a
playwright also known for scripting darkly comic TV shows such as Six Feet
Under, Dirty Sexy Money and Underemployed — has fun “solving” numerous
historical mysteries, such as how Leonardo da Vinci (Stanley Tucci) finally gets
the proper smile from his model, Mona Lisa (Lake Bell).
The supporting voice talent is
marvelous, starting with an immediately recognized Mel Brooks, as Albert
Einstein. Patrick Warburton dominates the third act as the boastfully manly
Agamemnon, introduced while sneaking his men into Troy via the fabled Trojan
Horse. Stephen Colbert and Leslie Mann pop up as Penny’s parents; Guillaume
Aretos is hilarious as the haughty Robespierre; and gravel-toned Dennis
Haysbert has an eye-blink cameo as an adoption judge.
Danny Elfman’s score is as lively
as the film’s increasingly chaotic action, with plenty of orchestral pizzazz
and the occasional melodic rim shot to punctuate a verbal or visual gag. Best
of all: no songs. Having characters break into warbled lyrics would be an abomination
in this material, and Minkoff and Wright wisely resist the temptation.
Peabody’s various
spur-of-the-moment rescues and solutions are visualized in a manner that echoes
the on-screen deductions made by Sherlock Holmes, whether played by Benedict
Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr. This also is a cute bit, although I wish
Minkoff could have paused on those hovering, engineering-style mental
blueprints a bit longer, so we had time to read all the whimsical details.
In terms of tone, pacing and
atmosphere, Minkoff’s work here closely resembles the Roger Rabbit shorts
(Tummy Trouble and Roller Coaster Rabbit) with which he began his big-screen
directing career, back in 1989. Minkoff also co-helmed 1994’s The Lion King, which demonstrated an understanding of how to transition from a hilariously
frantic cartoon short to a long-form dramatic animated feature.
Then, rather oddly, Minkoff
detoured into live-action junk such as The Haunted Mansion and 2011’s barely
released Flypaper, not to mention the not-quite-right Stuart Little and its
ill-advised sequel. I dunno what prompted DreamWorks to give him a chance with
this update of Mr. Peabody, but Minkoff definitely rose to the challenge with
considerable panache.
The result is successful enough
to demand a sequel, and — unlike far too many sequels prompted more by money
than dramatic necessity — the time-travel gimmick easily lends itself to plenty
of equally amusing adventures that could be realized with similar sharp wit.
I find it difficult to believe
that anybody under the age of 40 (50?) has the faintest idea that Mr. Peabody
and Sherman had a life before now, but if this DreamWorks update prompts new
fans to seek out and view the original cartoon shorts, so much the better.
They’re readily available via home video or on YouTube (and I recommend the
adventure with Edgar Allen Poe).
No comments:
Post a Comment