Mr. Peabody & Sherman - Movie Review

Starring the voices of Ty Burrell, Max Charles, Ariel Winter, Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, Stanley Tucci, Allison Janney and Patrick Warburton.
Directed by Rob Minkoff.

★★½

I watched Rocky & Bullwinkle as a kid, so I remember the other Jay Ward characters that would parade through - Dudley Do-Right, Commander McBragg, Aesop & Son, and of course Mr. Peabody & Sherman.

This update didn't quite hit the mark for me. For one thing, there was a distracting amount of potty humor. When your main character is a very intelligent dog with a weakness for puns, it just seems like potty humor would be beneath him. But this is DreamWorks, and because Shrek was a hit, I guess they figure they have to have potty humor in everything. In fact, the poster's slogan is "He's leaving his mark on history." How do dogs mark things? See what I mean?

Also, as someone who's about to adopt kids, it gives an alarming protrayal of just how easily kids can be ripped from their home. When Sherman gets in trouble at school, a social worker who is a cross between Dolores Umbridge and the Queen of Hearts arrives, ready to find the slightest excuse to yank him away from Peabody.

The animation is quality, and it's not the worst movie from DreamWorks Animation, but there's a reason they don't have the reputation of Pixar to be consistently good.