Mr Peabody and Sherman Real Parents Review

Mr Peabody and Sherman is a new film by Dreamworks based on a 70s cartoon from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

When you were a kid, did you enjoy this cartoon? I do not remembering watching it, but my husband remembers it fondly.  The new Mr Peabody and Sherman movie is a current version of the same story.  We saw a sneak preview of the movie this weekend and we enjoyed it very much.

In the new movie, we are introduced to Mr Peabody(a dog) who is the adoptive father of Sherman(a human). Mr Peabody is a dog of unmatched intellect.  One of Mr Peabody's fantastic inventions is something called the WABAC (pronounced "way - back") machine and is basically, a time machine. In the original cartoon series, they used the time machine to go back in time and learn about various historical characters and events.  In the new movie the WABAC machine has been modernized and their travels through wormholes looks like something out of Star Trek.  Mr Peabody tells Sherman to never go in the WABAC machine without him.

As the movie begins, Sherman is now old enough to attend school and his experiences with Mr Peabody (and the fact that his father is a dog) set him apart from his classmates and put him at odds with one popular girl in particular (Penny) who prior to his attendance, was the top student.  She then goes out of her way to bully and make fun of him.  Mr Peabody decides a good way to overcome this, is to have Penny and her parents over for dinner.  Everyone is a bit uneasy at this prospect, but they all give it a try. Despite an amazing evening planned by Mr Peabody, Penny and her family are still skeptical. While the parents/dog are chatting, Penny continued to tease Sherman about his thoughts on history.  Sherman decides to prove to Penny that his history knowledge is correct and he pulls her in to the WABAC machine.  Their trip through time does not go as planned, and you need to see the movie to see all the mayhem that Sherman and Penny cause and who they meet.

 

I felt like I was one of the few people who knew where these characters came from at our screening.  But even without the prior knowledge, it appeared that both children and parents enjoyed this movie. There are plenty of jokes that parents will enjoy and the children will not understand.  

 

This movie really tackles the issue of bullying and good strategies for overcoming this problem without being preachy about it.  There is very little violence (only of the cartoon type) and no cursing that we can recall.  I would highly recommend this movie for children 5 and up. Parents and kids give this movie 4.5 stars out of 5.  Enjoy!

Here is the current trailer for you to watch with your kids before going to the movie: