![]() ![]() The film’s visuals are slightly more boilerplate. Stoller walks the line between the two poles admirably, and when I saw his name in the closing credits, I realized why the movie balanced a bunch of comedic ideas and a handful of fun running jokes so well. George and Harold break the fourth wall to acknowledge they’re in a movie in fun ways, but they also love whoopie cushions and belches and little kid humor. The script, by Nicholas Stoller ( Neighbors, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), one of my favorite current movie comedy writer-directors, is both clever and silly without tilting too far in either direction. Dreamworks Animationīut Underpants has more going for it than brevity. In a summer already filling up with bloated, over-long movies, it was a relief. Its running time is 89 minutes, but enough of that is closing credits that it’s probably closer to 82 or 83. It just follows two boys scared about the sturdiness of their friendship, a principal who thinks he’s a superhero (sometimes), and a plot that’s mostly a chance for Kroll to be weird. That’s it! That’s all the movie needs! It doesn’t tack on unnecessary subplots or side-quests. Meanwhile, the evil Professor Poopypants ( Nick Kroll) shows up to give the movie a supervillain. Through an unlikely chain of events, they hypnotize Krupp into believing he’s Captain Underpants, the superhero they’ve written a number of comics about, then have to keep him from doing serious harm to himself and/or others by attempting to carry out his super-exploits. The story of Captain Underpants, based on the popular kids books by Dav Pilkey, follows two elementary school pranksters named George ( Kevin Hart) and Harold ( Thomas Middleditch), whose only goal in life is to avoid being sent to different classrooms by the authoritarian Principal Krupp ( Ed Helms). Captain Underpants is well-written, (sometimes) visually engaging, and really, really short It has its heart and its poop in the right place. (There is a kid character in the film who never laughs at anything and says, “I don’t get why that’s funny,” and it hit a little too close to home, if you know what I mean.) And, sure, there are booger and vomit and fart jokes in Captain Underpants, and there’s a guy whose name is Professor Poopypants, and everything zings with a kind of nervous little kid energy.īut you know what? This movie is fun. ![]() I mean the name Captain Underpants - that suggests booger and vomit and fart jokes, and even as a child, I was unmoved by them. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark ![]()
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