MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN

2014 rating: **

Mr. Peabody has always been smarter than anyone in the room, on the television screen or in this case, the theater, so it should come as no surprise his movie would try simultaneously catering to older and younger audiences, which might just cause all ages to scratch their skull-covered cerebellums at the same time…

Full of pop culture references, bad puns and a relationship between dog scientist and boy doofus that borders on creepy, we get an unnecessary flashback about how the Nobel prize winning mutt wound up adopting a boy, Sherman, who, unlike his canine master, is as dumb as a box of nails.

This backstory is like explaining why a rabbit talks to a duck, why a moose lives with a flying squirrel or... well... you get the point.

After a tedious setup, the duo hops back in time to save a little girl, Penny, Sherman’s new friend that joined him in Peabody’s Way-Back Machine. If things go wrong, Peabody won’t be able to keep his son yet it's really about the adventures and misadventures within each particular timeline: From the Trojan War to a stopover at Leonardo DiVinci’s studio, the action scenes are nice to look at but the dialogue is, for the most part, awkward and unnerving, as are most of the side-characters...

Leading to an 11th hour climax combining a ton of historical exposition that, like our hero namesake, is more brainy than entertaining.