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.
