Film based on cartoon from the past is not horrible, but be prepared for the children to play up, writes Christine Powley.
Director: Rob Minkoff
Cast: Ty Burrell, Max Charles, Ariel Winter, Guillaume Aretos, Allison Janney, Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, Stanley Tucci, Lake Bell, Patrick Warburton
Rating: (PG) Three stars (out of five)
Mr Peabody & Sherman (Rialto) is based on Peabody's Improbable History, a short cartoon that was part of the much better remembered The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show from the 1960s.
Turning this into a feature-length animation took a while - it has been in development at DreamWorks studio since 2007.
After all that undoubted effort you would hope for something a bit more thrilling, but for most of the time Mr Peabody & Sherman only manages to be all right. It is not horrible. You can sit and watch it without any fidgeting on your part but be prepared for the children to play up.
Anyway, Mr Peabody (Ty Burrell) is a genius dog who adopts a boy, Sherman (Max Charles) and in an effort to educate him invents a time machine called the WABAC. Together they travel through time learning the real lessons of history.
It all goes swimmingly until Sherman starts school. There the fact that his father is a dog means he comes into conflict with mean girl Penny Peterson (Ariel Winter).
Determined to help Sherman over the bullying, Mr Peabody invites the Peterson family over for dinner, and in no time we are taken on a series of historical adventures.
Best thing: This only really comes alive with Leonardo da Vinci (Stanley Tucci) and his trouble getting Mona Lisa (Lake Bell) to smile.
Worst thing: The original was genuinely weird. This just feels like a safe corporate product that has been focus-grouped into acceptable modern family values.
See it with: Your children. This is not the sort of adult guilty pleasure for which you round up any stray child just to see it.
