Capitaine Superslip

When's the last Summer movie that made you embrace your inner twelve year-old? That's why I really liked "Captain Underpants". Even with the move to big-screen CGI, it's still just two best friends, their unwitting super hero principal, and the right amount of potty humor. Seriously, the big fight scene is with a giant toilet.

Maybe it comes down to circumstances. Had I not read a few of the books, not been a parent to a seven year-old fan who loves them (and the movie), things may not have clicked. But they did, and that's what's important.

It feels faithful to the source material, with a lively animation style and hopelessly juvenile dialogue. Not making a sequel to this would be an injustice.

7/10

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.

This has been a huge week for "Wonder Woman", as it set a record for a female-directed movie with over $100,000,000 at the box office. However, in all the excitement over this film there is another superhero movie that debuted as well that deserves our attention as well…"Captain Underpants"! And, after having seen both films, I have to admit that I enjoyed watching "Captain Underpants" more because it is something few superhero movies are these days….it's fun! Please understand me…I am not saying it's necessarily better. However, it is a lot of fun and lighthearted…things you'd almost never associate with today's very dark superhero films…and reasons you might not want to take kids to see most of the pictures in this genre.

In order to enjoy the Captain Underpants movie it sure helps if you are a child…or if you are a bit childish. My daughters grew up reading the Captain Underpants books and Dav Pilkey's character certainly has been a hit among kids. Why do kids love Captain Underpants? Well, it's everything serious literature is not…it's filled with potty humor, bad jokes and silliness because Pilkey wrote and illustrated the books as if they were really created by mischievous children…the same George and Harold who are the stars of the film. And, having been a middle school teacher as well as a man who adamantly refuses to grow up, I had a wonderful time seeing it with my 22 year-old daughter…who also loved the movie.

The story begins with George and Harold being called into their very grouchy principal's office. As usual, they are up to no good and as usual the mirthless man is about to throw the book at the boys… sending them to separate classrooms…which is horrible since they are best friends. However, in desperation, George tries out his cheap hypno- ring he got in a cereal box and amazingly it works…turning the principal into the boys' slave. They decide to make him become Captain Underpants…the hero in the comic book the boys have created. And, like this character, the principal begins running around town fighting crime….in his underwear! Little do the boys realize that they'll need his help when the evil Professor Poopypants arrives with his latest weapon!

Okay…I'll admit this does not sound like Shakespeare or Jane Austin. You've got Professor Poopypants, comments about Uranus and fart jokes. But these are exactly what kids really love…and I heard lots of kids laughing throughout the movie. And, even though I am supposed to be sophisticated and above all this, I found myself laughing too.

I also appreciate how the Canadian team who made the film managed to capture the look, style and spirit of the Captain Underpants books. While the CGI is not the most complicated I've ever seen, it matches the characters perfectly…and even offers a cute added sock puppet show! Funny, well written and a lot of fun, this is NOT a good date night movie but a perfect film if you've got kids (young or even grown like mine) who grew up with Pilkey's creation. Not to be missed.

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

Captain Underpants was a highly successful children's book series made by cartoonist Dav Pilkey, lasting from the late 1990s up to the middle of this decade. What made the series so beloved by children was its crass albeit hysterical toilet humor, funny drawings, silly juvenile puns, and humorous characters. So, fast forward to last year when Dreamworks Animation adapted the series into a movie, one would expect it to fail on arrival. However, the crew somehow found a way to make the film work based on its source material, as this has to be one of the funniest self aware sophomoric family movies I've seen in a long time.

The film centers around two imaginative elementary school pranksters, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, who end up hypnotizing their mean-spirited principal, Mr. Krupp, into thinking he is the underwear styled superhero Captain Underpants, while also dealing with an evil scientist for a school teacher. For a premise like that, one would expect a fast-paced energetic tone with a lot of silly puns, and the film more than ever embraces its cartoony premise with plenty of potty jokes, fourth wall breaking, and frantic pacing. One particular scene that displays the books' famed "Flip-O-Rama" technique shows how much attention to detail the filmmakers took in adapting Pilkey's material. While the film does drag on a bit by the climax, it never fails to keep the humor flowing for the whole family to chuckle at.

What really sells the movie are George and Harold themselves, as they really feel like genuine friends with their love for gross-out humor and creating stories. In addition, while it may seem odd for Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch to voice two children, they work perfectly as mischievous delinquents, and their chemistry just bounces off the screen. Mr. Krump may seem like the typical evil principal, but there's a side to him that makes even George and Harold feel sorry for the poor old grump, displaying the most amount of heart throughout the film. Ed Helms is also brilliant in bouncing between Krupp and the cheerful Captain Underpants, showing off a comedic split personality vibe. The evil scientist, Professor Poopypants, is just diabolical as he wants to rid the world of laughter, and Nick Kroll registers lots of laughs with his mock German accent, especially with Poopypants using the stale humorless boy Melvin as bate for his plans of world domination.

The animation style helps bring the simplistic Dav Pilkey drawings into computer animation while still making them feel 2D, almost like The Peanuts Movie except much smoother. The usage of squash-and-stretch adds much weight to the characters, and the character animation really displays a lot of hilarious facial expressions. The world-building itself also looks very much like Dav Pilkey's own worlds, while getting enhanced for a cinematic experience. The usage of color, while pretty bright, is also handled quite well, as the film keeps the palette mixed in with the environments without having them pop out too much. Also, there are the occasional 2D animated and even sock puppet segments, yet they only arrive whenever a piece of exposition in George and Harold's comics or a bit of foreshadowing come afloat, making their presence all the more unpredictable.

In this day and age where many people think movies for the whole family are the lowest of the low when it comes to entertainment, this film comes around to boost up that trope to new heights. Needless to say, while by no means groundbreaking, Captain Underpants is just a constant joy that embraces juvenile humor to an endless degree. Along with its multiple of positive qualities, it has a message about just how important laughter really is, while also realizing the consequences to someone's actions, making it a very memorable experience for children of all ages. If you loved the books yourself or if you have a family of your own, give this film a watch, as it will brighten up your day with its zany comedy that never becomes too stupid for its own good. Hey, when Weird Al Yankovic sings the end credits song, it's hard not to smile at.