‘Captain Underpants’ is funny, fresh, frantic

REVIEW

‘CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS’

Grade: 3 out of 4 stars

Cast: Voiced by Thomas Middleditch, Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Nick Kroll, Jordan Peele, Kristen Schaal

Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes

Rating: PG for mild rude humor throughout.

By Katie Walsh

Tribune News Service (TNS)

Dreamworks Animation has done right by the adaptation in hiring comedy writer-director Nicholas Stoller to adapt the screenplay. The story of “Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie” is funny, fresh and frantic, playing with format and genre, adding meta, self-reflective winks at itself. The film is propelled by its hyperactive energy and quirky style – directed breathlessly by David Soren – and the combustible chemistry between the two leads, voiced by Thomas Middleditch and Kevin Hart, who play Harold and George, a pair of pranksters who fight back against The Man – Principal Krupp (Ed Helms) – with elaborate practical jokes.

Their resistance also comes in the form of their handmade comic books featuring the overgrown baby superhero. George is the writer, Harold the artist, and this creative outlet is a sanctuary from the tyranny of the draconian panopticon of school, which Principal Krupp runs like a prison. He threatens to split up the two boys to stem their troublemaking, and in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to salvage their friendship, they hypnotize their principal with a plastic cereal box trinket. Suddenly he’s behaving like a very enthusiastic, though very dumb, Captain Underpants.

For a film that is almost entirely based around toilet humor of the fourth grade reading level, you may be surprised that there are some sage wisdoms to be found in the saga of Captain Underpants. The film contains a strong message about the ability of art to speak truth to power, standing up to oppression and the subversive nature of laughter. Turns out that sometimes the crayon can be mightier than the sword. But politics aside, “Captain Underpants” imparts a universal lesson about the distinction between laughing with someone, rather than at them, and most importantly, about being able to laugh at yourself. He’s in his underpants, for crying out loud.