Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
3.5 out of 5
If you have kids, or have had some young ones who like to read running around your house, at some point you’ve likely heard of Captain Underpants. I have two boys, and one in particular ate those books up like cookies when he was younger. He would often pull my attention away from whatever I was doing to tell me some funny thing Captain Underpants, along with the two kids who invented him were doing in their latest adventure. I have to admit — being a big kid myself — I thought it was funny. The writing was creative, and there was always something even adults could laugh at. So when “Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie” was announced — I knew my younger son and I would have to check it out.
When we arrived at the theater, I first noticed that we would be joined by a TON of kids, with one or two parents by their side. The kids all had big toothy grins, ready to see the big screen incarnation of this funny superhero. Most of the adults had the same look on their faces that I had…The one that says “I’m just here for my kids,” but has a small undercurrent of excitement as well. Though my son has moved on to bigger and better books now — the movie was obviously something he was anxious to see, and it was nice to see that glimmer of the small boy who used to read them to me in his eyes again.
If you’re not familiar with the books, don’t worry — as the title says, this is the “First Epic Movie,” so it serves as a…well…ahem…Okay I’m just gonna say it: It’s an origin movie for the superhero Captain Underpants. Just like the other origin movies for all of the other superheroes we see nowadays. Hey, if Captain America can get an origin movie, why can’t Captain Underpants? Right out of the gate we meet George (Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch), who are buddies in a school ruled by a frazzled and easily frustrated principal named Mr. Krupp (Ed Helms). George and Harold have been friends since kindergarten and have been pulling pranks and having fun ever since, all while alluding Mr. Krupp’s capture. All of the other children in the school are afraid to mess with Krupp, or do anything to get out of line, meanwhile George and Harold are never in line — at all. The boys regale you with stories of their triumphs and friendship, and introduce you to what they do best — which is write stories about a character they have created called, “Captain Underpants.” They’re cocky, funny and cool — and they know it. But fate catches up with them, when Mr. Krupp forces the entire school to attend an “Invention Convention” on a Saturday morning, where students are to display their various inventions. Needless to say, no one is excited to have their Saturday taken from them, and it gets worse when the school nerd, Melvin (Jordan Peele) gets up first to show off his 17 inventions. Of course, George and Harold are bored and take matters into their own hands by causing one of Melvin’s inventions to malfunction. What they didn’t plan on however, was that one of Melvin’s inventions filmed them pulling the prank the whole time. Now Mr. Krupp has the evidence he’s been dying to get, and with it in hand, decides to punish the boys by putting them in separate classes. The boys are convinced that this will be the end of their friendship and decide they can’t let that happen. By using one of the toys that Mr. Krupp had previously confiscated from them — George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp — who then can be manipulated into thinking he is Captain Underpants. Now that the boys have full control of him their lives and friendship seem secured, until a new science teacher (with a funny name) shows up at the school and puts everything into chaos leaving George, Harold and even Captain Underpants to save the day.
This movie will likely do very well with its intended demographic, and I imagine that there will be others made somewhere down the line. But just like many movies that you think are strictly for kids, and won’t do well with adults, “Captain Underpants” is a movie pretty much anyone can enjoy. All of the voices are really well done — the animation is fun, and there are real, genuine laughs throughout the movie. I really liked it, my son liked it and I heard just as many adults laughing and cackling as I did little kids. If you’ve seen your child reading these books around the house — go see it with them — they’ll love it, and even if you haven’t heard of the great “Captain Underpants,” it’s worth the watch.
