Mr Peabody & Sherman

Mr Peabody knew he was different. He wasn't interested in what his peers were up to - catching balls, running in the park. He was bookish, intellectually of a superior calibre and fairly dismissive of ordinary people.

He went to Harvard and later became a world renowned scientist who won a Nobel Prize. He built a time machine and adopted a baby boy called Sherman. This would have been an overqualified CV for any pointy headed lab nerd, but Mr P is a dog.

This makes him special. Sherman thinks so, too. Aged seven he goes to his first school and naturally shows off in class by questioning the teacher about Georgie Washbasin. He didn't cut down that cherry tree, or say those idiotic things about never telling a lie. Sherman knows because he met the original President on one of Mr P's time trips.

Oops! Don't tell anyone about that, especially teen-witch-in-waiting Penny, who has begun a Girls Against Sher-dhurr campaign.

It would be difficult not to enjoy this film. Mr P finds dissent a mind wipe so go with the flow and love him to bits. He'll take you to the French Revolution where Sherman pigs out on Marie Antoinette's cakes. He'll introduce you to Leonardo da Vinci who is exasperated because Lisa refuses to smile.

In ancient Egypt, Penny is about to wed a pre-adolescent Pharaoh and during the siege of Troy there's trouble inside the horse. And so it goes, allowing the imagination to race and wit to erase critical objections, such as time machines are so yester...

For the red headed Sherman and his loppy eared dad "same old same old" are words from a cynic's playbook. There's nothing stale, nor been-there about this animated pooch's fizzy brainstorms.

Sherman is a lucky lad.

"I love you Mr Peabody," he calls from the school gates.

"I have a deep regard for you, Sherman," Mr P replies.