Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

When I decided to watch this with my movie theatre-working friend, I didn't really know much of what it was about other than it was based on some books I never read and that it had a satirical bent concerning superheros and kids' imagination in creating them. George and Harold are a couple of pre-teen boys who love comics to the point of creating the title character mentioned above. But the principal at their school has had enough of their pranks and resolves to separate them by having them in different classes. I'll stop there and just say this was quite funny and maybe a bit touching in how some things get resolved. But the fact the fourth wall is often broken seems a sure sign that nothing is meant to be taken seriously. My friend had seen this before and liked it enough to let me watch it with him. It really tickled my funny bone, that's for sure! So on that note, I-and he-highly recommend Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.

One of the least boring movies I've ever seen. With the un-cynical bigness of Jimmy Neutron & the meta tone of Rocky & Bullwinkle, it's a wonderfully buoyant big 'C' Cartoon about childish friendship & creativity. It relishes in joy & silliness, & even its gross-out humor feels sincere (it DOES have the word "Underpants" in the title). It has focused stakes, fantastically cartoony animation, LOL humor, & a strong (if predictable) message about the balance between fun & responsibility. Very few skid marks here.

*Minor Spoilers Ahead* George (Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch) are two elementary school kids that write and animate comic books in their tree house. Their favourite character is Captain Underpants and we get an introduction to his comic origin in the beginning. Moving back to George and Harold, their friendship is as close as it gets and they spend their days making these comics and pulling pranks on the faculty. To any adult looking in, they're a pain to deal with but they bring life to their dull and dreary environment. Principal Krupp (Ed Helms) definitely is in the camp that believes that these two are a menace and he makes it his goal to put an end to their shenanigans. He's unable to catch them in the act so he has to endure their constant misadventures until the school tattletale Milton (Jordan Peele) records them messing with his project for the science fair. Krupp sees this as the opportunity to move them into separate classes, effectively destroying their friendship. There's little hope but in an act of desperation, George tries to hypnotize Krupp using a Hypno-Ring that he found in his cereal. Against all the odds, it actually works and he falls under their command. They come up with the idea to turn him into Captain Underpants. It works but Krupp gallops out of the office to fight evil with George and Harold running behind him trying to get a handle on the situation.

I got a chance to read a few of the books when I was younger and while they're very much geared towards kids, the books were pretty funny and surprisingly creative. To my surprise, they change the story around a little but Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is very faithful to Dave Pilkey's work. The characters all have the same spirit, the message of the books carry over and perhaps most importantly, the movie shares the same adventurous sense of humour. I was laughing constantly in this movie despite being an adult and most of the kids in the theatre were laughing along with me. The movie has a very fast pace and the jokes are firing at a mile a minute clip. On the downside though, although I thought this was one of the funniest animated movies I've seen in a while, it is definitely more geared towards kids. There's a lot of potty humour and while they pay respect to the Captain Underpants books by including so much of it, there's only so many times you can laugh at Professor Poopypants as an adult. I was familiar with the material so I knew what to expect but to the uninitiated it might be a tad jarring. Some great kids movies include some jokes to tide the adults over, this movie has some meta humour but there's not as much as I would have liked.

While the plot of the movie is pretty simple and it's carried by the comedy, the animation is awesome. Dreamworks really did a great job of following the art style of the books but presenting a great looking movie. It reminded me a lot of the Peanuts Movie that was put out by Blue Sky Studio in 2015 (I mean that as a big compliment). It's hard to find a balance between calling back to the source yet compete in a crowded big budget animated movie market. Dreamworks normally deliver solid entertainment but I was pretty blown away by what they accomplished with this property.

Looking at the voice acting talent, you've got some big names filling these roles which is typical of Dreamworks. I wasn't sure that Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch would work given that their characters are supposed to be kids. But they were both really good and they both flawlessly delivered the jokes yet brought warmth to their characters. Ed Helms was impressive as Principal Krupp/Captain Underpants. I wouldn't have though he'd be a talented voice actor but he definitely got the job done. Nick Kroll is fresh off Sausage Party and after this I think he's definitely becoming an authority in this area. Jordan Peele and Kristen Schaal round out a solid voice cast and they were good in their supportive roles.

I think my favourite part of this movie was the fact that it wasn't afraid to be really weird. They don't just stick to conventional animation or conventional storytelling. We get portions of the story told through George and Harold's comics, sock puppets and regular puppets. They have different animation asides and they even incorporate one of my favourite parts of the books in something that was completely unexpected (I can't spoil what). They also have parts where they break 4th wall and explain things to the audience directly. I loved those aspects of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie and it helped make things different and memorable.

This movie won't be everyone's favourite movie and I can completely understand that. This is going to work for kids and adults who remember these books but this movie also puts in way more effort than it had to. The movie even has a decent message of friendship and trying to look at issues from different sides. This isn't Dreamworks best movie (I would still give that to the original How to Train Your Dragon) but I would put among their best movies ever. If you're a fan of Captain Underpants you're going to love this and I think you'll get enough out of this that it won't be a pain to see this with the kids.

Captain Underpants is Dreamworks's latest animated feature based on the book series by Dav Pilkey. It's about two elementary school boys named George Beard and Harold Hutchins who are the school's pranksters. They make comics in their treehouse called Captain Underpants and have to deal with an incredibly unpleasant principal named Mr. Krupp. However, one day when they got into major trouble, George uses a hypnotizing ring to turn Mr. Krupp into Captain Underpants.

Dreamworks hasn't necessarily been doing very well at the box office or with critics for the last few years. When I went to this movie, I was optimistic, mainly because I knew the source material very well since I read the Captain Underpants books. It turns out that I was right for going in with an optimistic attitude. This is Dreamworks's best stand-alone in a good while. They picked out a book/book franchise that is somewhat well-known instead of something completely out of nowhere like Smekday or The Boss Baby, which really helps bring in attention to said movie. The movie knows its source material really well with the ins and outs. It knows what it is and it even pokes fun at some of the inner workings of the movie. I'm aware that this is only an adaptation and there's a limit to how far you can go and from what we got, they did a decent job at it. The animation looks like a 3D version of something that you would see in the books, and just that is enough for me to like the style that the movie was going for.

Despite the fact that I think that this is one of Dreamworks's best in a while, it does have some flaws here and there. First off, the pacing makes the movie feel like it's going too fast at times. The movie only seems to have times where you can sink in the moment occasionally, but not very often. Since the movie does carry the spirit of the books, it also carries the humor, which I personally didn't laugh at many of the jokes, which may turn people off from watching the movie. A lot of the humor is derived from toilet humor and as well as it works for this movie in particular, it may drive audiences away. I'm also not a huge fan of the voice casting in this, mostly with the children. You would normally expect kids to sound like kids, but in this movie, the kids sound more like adults and it's really bothersome. Normally if adults are doing child voices, they would pitch up their voices, but here, Kevin Hart, Thomas Middleton and Jordan Peele use their regular voices and it's just distracting.

While this movie might not be for everyone, it can be classified as Dreamworks's best movie in a while that's not a sequel. If you're a huge fan of the books, I recommend checking out this movie!

8/10

The plot follows 2 imaginative elementary school prankster students, George Beard and Harold Hutchins (Hart, Middleditch) who hypnotize their mean-spirited principal, Mr. Krupp (Helms), into thinking he is Captain Underpants, a hero in comic books George and Harold write together.

It is absolutely entertaining for adults and enchanting for all children who are looking for comedy and entertainment.

Captain Underpants is DreamWorks' computer-animated feature film and that is why it will be number 1 in most countries of the world.