Mr. Peabody and Sherman

A reimagining of the classic companion cartoon to "Rocky and Bullwinkle," it's fair to say "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" fares quite a bit better cinematically than its more famous counterparts. In fact, "Peabody" has smarts, wit and a surprising sense of adventure.

This new version redefines the duo's relationship from vague friends to father and son, which is to say the genius dog Peabody (brilliantly voiced by Ty Burrell of TV's "Modern Family"), who grew up an unwanted orphan himself, takes in and adopts young Sherman (voiced by Max Charles). After solving many of the world's problems, Peabody now devotes much of his time to raising young Sherman and traveling through time via the "WABAC" machine. (Get it?)

However, as children do, Sherman gets to be school-age, and, after he encounters a bully and gets in a fight, Peabody and Sherman host the bully and her parents for a dinner party in hopes of quashing the conflict early. The bully, it turns out, is a girl named Penny (voiced by Burrell's "Family" co-star Ariel Winter), whom Sherman promptly (and against orders) takes to the WABAC...and loses. In ancient Egypt.

Meanwhile, a caseworker (Allison Janney) who doesn't approve of Peabody adopting and raising a human boy uses the incident as an excuse to threaten to take Sherman away.

This spurs the film's central action, where Peabody and Sherman rescue Penny, bouncing through time and encountering some of history's more famous figures, all while fending off Penny's parents and the caseworker.

Let's talk first about what "Peabody" does right in capturing the relationship of the main characters in a different, but still similar, way. In the cartoon, there is a distinct mentor-and-protege relationship, and making them adopted father and son is an interesting and natural progression, providing the film's center.

The film has solid wit and more than enough smarts for us to believe that Peabody is in fact a genius capable of creating a time machine; that is to say he doesn't shift into dunce mode for slapstick comedy when the plot requires, as other movies of this ilk have done to similar characters. If not identical to their counterparts, they are similar enough that they feel familiar to fans old enough to know them.

The aforementioned wit is often biting, including sometimes gruesome or macabre references to events like the French Revolution and the Trojan War. It's fun, darkly so at moments, but never inappropriate for its target age, and I'd liken it to the humor in the "Despicable Me" films).

Which brings us to what "Peabody" could do a little better. The plot devolves a touch into a race against time and fate-of-the-free-world territory as an accident threatens to unravel the space/time continuum. While not a horrifically egregious move, it is a somewhat cheap, tacked-on finale.

In addition, while it's not nearly as pronounced as I'd feared based on the trailers, there are fair number of modern colloquialisms and pop-culture references sprinkled throughout, mainly in the form of the historical figures using expressions they otherwise wouldn't use, like "I did NOT see that coming!" or "I got that," and use of high fives and things of that sort. They're used sparingly enough to not be too distracting, and frankly, given the fact that the filmmakers get so much right, this old coot is willing to grant certain concessions.

Overall, "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" is chock full of pleasant surprises, fun subtext and ample adventure (and more than a little of the spoonful-of-sugar approach to history the original also employed). It's loads of fun, like a trip in your own personal WABAC.