Movie Review: Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Movie Review: Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie                                                      4-1-18

Between 2012 and 2014, DreamWorks released four box-office bombs: Rise of the Guardians, Turbo, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, and The Penguins of Madagascar. This caused PDI, Pacific Data Images, to go bankrupt, and 450 employees were paid off. Some of them went to work at the CG department at DreamWorks, while others left for good. Jeffery Katzenburg suggested that they should make a cheaper film based on the Captain Underpants books by Dav Pilkey. The result ended up being one of the biggest surprises for 2017, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.

George Beard (Kevin Hart) and Harold Hutchins (Thomas Middleditch) are best friends at Jerome Horowitz Elementary. They love to make comics and pull pranks. Their biggest threat is their cruel principal Benjamin Krupp (Ed Helms). After catching them ruin a science fair, Krupp plans to put them in separate classrooms, so George and Harold hypnotize him into obeying their every command. They trick him into turning into their fan-made superhero Captain Underpants. However, Krupp actually thinks that he's Captain Underpants, when he doesn't even have superpowers! However, George and Harold manage to turn Captain Underpants back into Krupp by getting his head wet, and back into Captain Underpants by snapping their fingers. Any finger snap. When Mr. Krupp hires a new science teacher, Professor Pippy Poopypants (Nick Kroll), who plans on eliminating laughter from the world, it's up to George, Harold, and Captain Underpants to save the world.

Now, what did I think of Captain Underpants? I think it's DreamWorks' best comedy since Megamind! The movie stays faithfully to its source material with its clever writing, likable characters, and, if you've read the books, Pilkey's odd and sometimes twisted sense of humor.

Captain Underpants, disguised as Mr. Krupp, is conducting a whoopee cushion symphony.

Captain Underpants has the reputation of being the first DreamWorks movie to be completely outsourced: Instead of being animated in California, Captain Underpants was animated at Mikros Image in Canada and Technicolor Animation Productions in France.

Also, Captain Underpants was made on only 38 million dollars, rather than around 100 million dollars, the average budget for a CG feature.

However, Captain Underpants also utilizes 2D animation, stop-motion, sock puppets, and the world famous Pilkey® brand Flip-O-Rama!

This fight scene does not end up in the film or any of the books.

After seeing the movie in July of 2017, I decided to read the Captain Underpants books myself, and they are sure to delight kids from ages 7 to 12. These following books are in the franchise.

I'm happy that there's going to be a Captain Underpants Netflix series: Perhaps they could add more characters from the books, including Dr. Diaper, the Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space, the Wedgie Woman, Sulu the Bionic Hamster, Crackers the Pterodactyl, and more!

In conclusion, while not as good as Coco, Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie, or In This Corner Of The World, Captain Underpants is definitely one of the better animated movies released in 2017. I am willing to watch it more times than Despicable Me 3.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Plus four Terrible Talking Toilets

Tomorrow, I will talk about PDI.