Juvenile and jolly

Captain Underpants

STARRING: Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Thomas Middleditch

DIRECTOR: David Soren

Genre: Animation

Rating: PG

RUNNING TIME: 89 minutes

If you like toilet talk, sock puppets and are younger than age 12, you will enjoy DreamWorks’ latest animated film, Captain Underpants, which might be the perfect antidote for those pesky back-to-school blues.

The comedy, based on the popular children’s book series by Dav Pilkey, follows the friendship of fourth-graders George Beard (Kevin Hart) and Harold Hutchins (Thomas Middleditch) who have spent their school lives plotting pranks to thwart their vicious principal Mr Krupp (Ed Helms), who they dub ‘the worst principal in the world.’

The boys’ antics are well-intentioned. You see, Principal Krupp seems to be in the wrong business: He hates children and tries to suck the fun out of a public school education. He even makes the kids go to the Invention Convention on a Saturday just to torture them.

The school know-it-all and principal’s pet Melvin (Jordan Peele) also has it out for the dynamic boy duo and provides enough proof for Mr Krupp to finally bestow upon the BFFs their worst nightmare — to annihilate their friendship by separating them into different classes. Oh, the humanity.

In a last-ditch effort to save their friendship from a not-so-long-distance fate, the boys accidentally hypnotise Mr Krupp into their self-made comic book hero: The Amazing Captain Underpants.

Aside from being dimwitted and constantly yelling ‘Tra La La,’ the Captain wears a red cape and tightey-whiteys. He’s also the opposite of Mr Krupp in that he’s overly optimistic and really thinks he can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

While the situation originally leads to various fun, tongue-in-cheek antics, George and Harold wind up needing Captain Underpants to save them when a new supervillain, Professor Poopypants (Nick Kroll), shows up with the goal of erasing the sense of humour from every living being on the planet.

Captain Underpants has all the components of being a competent superhero origin story, but it succeeds because of the relationship between George and Harold. They’re best friends who grew close to each other thanks to their similar comedic sensibilities, and who help keep the other one afloat through even the most troublesome of times.

Surprisingly, considering the juvenile subject matter, it’s a legitimately heart-warming story about two friends who find joy in making each other laugh.

It also doesn’t hurt the fact that Captain Underpants is one of the funniest movies to hit theatres so far this year.

The screenplay is self-referential, light-hearted, and inventive, finding new ways to make often the same set of jokes work over and over again. Wisely, all of the film’s comedy comes from the humanity of the characters, taking the time to establish and flesh out everyone in the film in a way that most animated movies these days don’t.

None of this is to say that Captain Underpants is perfect. It does not reach the emotional levels or intellectual insight that could make it one of the all-time animated greats.

The film’s breakneck pacing can sometimes be exhausting, especially in the third act, and there are more than a few unnecessary, irksome animation decisions throughout (such as having some characters’ brains talk to each other) that pushes the absurdity just a bit too far.

But even when the film is stretching the believability of its world to its breaking point, the talents and personalities of its voice cast often help bring the film back from the edge.

It’s rare that an adaptation like this is able to capture the same warmth and themes of its source material, but Captain Underpants does and it’s a joy from beginning to end because of it.

Now showing in: Cineco, Seef II, Saar, Wadi Al Sail, Mukta A2

KRISTIAN’S VERDICT: 4/5