Captain Underpants

When Stan Lee introduced Spider-Man in 1962, he referred to superheroes as "long underwear characters" who are a "dime a dozen." I ask these questions. Who wears long underwear anymore? And I'm not sure underwear is kinda accurate.

But leave it to Dav Pilkey to create a literary hero who actually fights in his underwear, Captain Underpants! This incredibly silly concept is now a Dreamworks feature, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.

George Beard (Kevin Hart) and Harold Hutchinson (Thomas Middleditch) love to amuse themselves and their classmates at the dour Jerome Horwitz Elementary School. Their best mediums are pranks and comics. Their top creation is Captain Underpants, whose choice attire should be obvious. Their excessive pranks irks the ill-tempered Principal Krupp (Ed Helms) to no end. So he decides to end it all by putting the boys in separate classes. As a last ditch effort to stop him, George pulls a 3D Hypno Ring that he got out of a cereal box on Krupp. The Hypno Ring actually works.

The boys realize that Krupp resembles their creation and promptly make him Captain Underpants. Their real life super hero is a super pleasant nuisance who causes more trouble than he realizes. They can change him back with water, and revert with finger snapping, but why bother? Krupp will just split them up. They'll just have to find a way to keep their problem under control. But he'll be useful when the new science teacher (Nick Kroll) decides to take over the world by sucking the laughter out of it.

Director David Soren co-wrote the screenplay with Nicholas Stoller. The toilet humor might bury this premise under most interpretations. But not this one. The film is loaded with several sly meta-jokes, sight gags, slapstick, running gags, action scenes ... and profound messages. Yes, messages. To wit, kids must have fun and friendship in their lives or they'll be miserable adults like Krupp and the science teacher. The science teacher's motivation is to avenge the mocking of his name, Professor Poopypants. It does make one think of the real life stigma of having a "unique" name.

The voice cast also sells it. Ed Helms is great as the maniacal Principal Krupp and the pleasant Captain Underpants. Hart and Middleditch make for a likable pair of karmic tricksters who get in way over their heads. Kroll's Professor Poopypants makes for an entertaining villain; he discusses the brain in overly-long nonsense terms, badly denies being a secret supervillain and is legitimately threatening when he shows himself evil. Jordan Peele also stands out as Melvin Sneedly, George and Harold's grade school nemesis and the Professor's laugh-resistant assistant.

It's a miracle that this movie cost $38 million considering the cost of animation and movies and animation movies these days. The movie's colorful animation is a 3D translation of the original books' art style. The film also has comic book scenes in 2D animation in that same style. It even has an imagine spot with sock puppets! There's even a scene presented in flip book form, which the books called "Flip-o-Rama," which our heroes admit is a cost cutting measure. The changing art styles help cement the film's wacky nature. The unusually good sound design made it a nice aural experience.

Don't let the wacky title throw you off. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is the smartest dumb movie of the summer. It knows how silly it is and lets the audience have fun with it. There's much to think about after its 89 minutes are done. I saw it on flatscreen matinee, but it's worth any price. That's how good it is.