#i know theres that one that was originally going to also be in coraline; careful what you pick i believe??

[tmos-time]

WAIT you like they might be giants?? Whistling in the Dark has been battling it out in my head for like a month smfh

ooh, i haven't actually heard that one! listening to it rn and only a minute in i can already tell this thing is MADE to get stuck in a persons head lmfao

[theantisocialcritic]

Archive Project - March 12, 2014 - Mr. Peobody and Sherman Review

For the past couple of Animated Features i've seen in theaters there has been a trailer for this "thing" called Box Trolls. This movie is apparently being made by the production house behind Coraline and ParaNorman. That fact alone, more than the trailer itself, makes me want to go see this movie. Whoever these "Laika" people are they are insanely talented with stop-motion animated. The insane level of detail that goes into their movies is terrifying to comprehend. So with that in mind, the philosophy for trying to sell this movie to audiences was to apparently show the movie's production… instead of the plot or characters. They just released a second trailer for this too… and this one also doesn't tell us anything about the box or characters. It works almost as a before and after shot. All the cool things they bragged about in the last trailer are shown in full force and it LOOKS good. It strikes me that there is a lack of confidence that people would be interested in the story they have to tell given how odd it looks. This assumption wouldn't be too out there as ParaNorman didn't actually do well when it was released, sadly. Maybe i'm wrong, heck I want to go see the movie cause I know it's full of a lot of talent. Who knows… ONTO THE REVEIW!!! ————————————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————————————— Mr. Peabody and Sherman, 2014. Rob Minkoff 92 Minutes Watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMl2tTVwsZA ————————————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————————————— Famed animator Jay Ward is a critical figure in the history of cartoon animation. His work in the 60s brought forth a lot of major television cartoons and helped bring animation, which had previously largely been reserved to theaters due to it's high production costs, into the homes of everyday people. His work during this time comprises a list of some of animation's deepest roots: Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do Right, Fractured Fairytales and of course Peabody's Improbable History. In the latter of the list: Mr. Peabody is the world's most intelligent dog. He adopts a human boy in a witty role reversal of the common "Boy and His Dog" trope and then uses his intellect to build a time machine known as the WABAC machine to give as a gift to his boy, Sherman. Peabody's Improbable History was usually incorporated into Jay Ward's Rocky and His Friends, a half hour collection of animations from his catalog that ran into the mid-1960s which was later renamed The Bullwinkle Show. Peabody's Improbable History died with Rocky and Bullwinkle and was never successfully revived. Flash forward to the 2010s. Director Rob Minkoff, famed for his masterpiece The Lion King, decides he wants to do a passion project for one of his inspirational childhood cartoons. He manages to get the rights, the funding and does it. The result is an updated version of Peabody's Improbable History, titled Mr. Peabody and Sherman. I will give this movie credit where it was due. I went into the movie expecting it to be bad. The trailers didn't impress me at all and I wasn't excited to see one of the cartoons I loved as a child repurposed into disposable children's entertainment. Upon seeing it I can now say this: Mr. Peabody and Sherman was not as bad as I was assuming it was going to be. It however isn't a great, lasting or even very memorable film though. Its just really dull and inconsistent. One of my biggest fears going into the film was that the characters were going to get butchered and made stupid. Mr. Peabody sounded ultimately dumb as a character in the way he was described and Sherman looked like an idiot, hyper active kid with ADHD and voiced by a terrible child actor. Surprisingly  most of those things never FULLY came into fruition. I mean you can definitely tell Sherman is played by a kid who has never voice acted before but the things that would have bothered me weren't sharp enough to bother me. The opening scenes of the film play out as a… oddly morbid and dark, but clear homage to the original episode of Peabody's Improbable History with a lot of the same story beats being reenacted into horrible 3rd dimensional animation (i'll get back to that..). Even some of the cinematography is meant to evoke the original show which is facisnating to behold. This strikes me as a reassuring pat on the back to fans that the people behind this did their homework and care enough to try to make this for fans, by fans. Which I would appreciate, if I considered this film to be anything special Something that really bothers me though is the way the story plays out. There are a lot of plot threads that pop up that don't make any sense in the context of the movie. For example, it's implied throughout the movie that Peabody and Sherman as going through effectively, daddy issues given that Peabody can't admit he loves his Sherman and such. But that defeats the entire purpose of why Peabody adopted Sherman in the first place; he did it so that he could give Sherman the love and support he never got as a child. From the way they interact in the first scenes and throughout the movie, its clear that they have a healthy relationship with each other. Peabody takes care of Sherman, provides him with everything he can and teaches him everything he can. What is the point of sticking daddy issues into the mix? Especially when another story plot deals with Peabody having to prove to the government that he is a good father figure, which by rights he already appears to be. The ONLY evidence that Peabody might be a bad father is that Sherman bits a kid a school for picking on him which is implied to be somewhat justified…? It just feels like outside of the main story involving time travel, all of the treads are messy and inconsistent. Also they try to evoke parallels Doctor Who by making the WABAC perform and evoke visual similarities to a TARDIS… Who wants to be original with time travel when they could just invoke pop culture imagery more for less effort? Also the logic behind the time travel doesn't make any sense.. It didn't in the original show either but that was part of the joke.   I must also complain about he sound design in this. It was horrible… Theres a scene early on in which Peabody and Sherman are riding on top of a wave down a sewer and the sound effects, other than being much quieter than they should have been, sounded like they were panning wave sounds up and down. It sounded cheap and didn't evoke what should have been the appropriate sounds for this scene. Overall, three works really strike me about this movie. Those words are: "Missing The Point". Peabody's Improbable History was a fun show, not because it was well animated or slick, but because it was well written. The people who made this show had limited time and money to make these cartoons and couldn't afford the same animation houses that made classics like Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes. They had to compensate for that by making the writing pick up the slack for everything else. It had to be fun and witty and it succeeded in doing so. Peabody's Improbable History was intelligent and was meant to teach kids about history in silly ways. Mr. Peabody and Sherman doesn't teach kids very much, other than a historically inaccurate retelling to the French Revolution. This movie has it way too easy. With the ease of computers nowadays entire animated movies can be made quickly and cheaply. Thats why so many 3D animated movies are awful nowadays. 2D animations and shop motion ones take a lot more work and have a different feel to them. It feels like with those that there are people working on them. When you get a modern 3D animated movie in the hands of people who aren't creative or innovative enough to make something interesting with it like Pixar, Dreamworks or Disney are then the end result is garbage like Ice Age 4 and The Nut Job… I would have at least preferred this movie if the people behind it made it 2D to be more respectful to the source material. Heck, Rob Minkoff made the best 2D animated movie of all time! He could have made something great! Thankfully, Peabody's Improbable History isn't some great thing that needed to be preserved creatively. It wasn't something great like RoboCop or Total Recall that didn't need a reboot. I'd be all for it if Cartoon Network or Nick managed to secure the rights to reboot the Rocky and Bullwinkle show in a new format if the right people were behind it. This movie didn't ruin anything by being dull. Considering some of the other horrible movies based on the Rock and Bullwinkle show that have been released like Rock and Bullwinkle… Dudley Do Right.. and Boris and Natasha… I think I can forgive this film for a lot!   My Recommendation: The original episodes are Peabody's Improbable History are still floating around Youtube nowadays. The original 5 minute episode tells the exact same story as the movie. No I don't support internet Piracy, so I wouldn't recommend that you check out the original 5 Minute episode on youtube which can be found in the link below. I would not recommend you click that link and watch it instead of paying to see the movie in theaters. Do so at your own risk! :P http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owB6zFSZbng ————————————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————————————— Mr. Peabody and Sherman is now in theaters. Thank you for reading! Live long and prosper!