Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (also known as Captain Underpants, Captain Underpants: The Movie, or simply The Captain Underpants Movie) is a 2017 American computer-animated superhero comedy film based on the children's novel series of the same name by Dav Pilkey. It was produced by DreamWorks Animation and Scholastic Entertainment, with animation production provided by Mikros Image Montreal and distributed by 20th Century Fox for the final film. It was directed by David Soren from a screenplay by Nicholas Stoller, and stars the voices of Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Thomas Middleditch, Nick Kroll, Jordan Peele, and Kristen Schaal. The film marked the 20th anniversary of the Captain Underpants series. It premiered on May 21, 2017 at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles, and was released in the United States on June 2, in 3D and 2D formats.

A Netflix television series, The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants was released on July 13, 2018, a year after the film, and aired for 4 seasons with 45 episodes and 3 specials, where it used hand-drawn animation and none of the original cast reprised their voice roles.

Plot
"George Beard and Harold Hutchins are two overly imaginative pranksters who spend hours in a treehouse creating comic books. When their mean principal threatens to separate them into different classes, the mischievous boys accidentally hypnotize him into thinking that he's a ridiculously enthusiastic, incredibly dimwitted superhero named Captain Underpants."

- Official Description

In Piqua, Ohio, George Beard (Kevin Hart) and Harold Hutchins (Thomas Middleditch) are two fourth-grade friends and next-door neighbors who often express their sense of humor at their school, bringing joy and laughter to Jerome Horwitz Elementary School. The duo frequently prank the cruel teachers at the school, especially the ill-mannered misanthropic principal, Benjamin "Benny" Krupp (Ed Helms), which puts them at odds with him. The duo also create comic books about Captain Underpants, a superhero who fights crime while wearing only underwear and a cape. They sell these to their schoolmates through a comic company called Treehouse Comix Inc, housed in their treehouse. George and Harold's pranks come to an apparent end after they tamper with a toilet invention called the Turbo Toilet 2000 made by the school's local snitch, intellectual Melvin Sneedly (Jordan Peele), which launches it into chaotic malfunction, resulting in the school's boring Invention Convention getting turned into a boisterous and upbeat dance party inside the gymnasium, involving toilet paper, and the song, "Think" (covered by Adam Lambert). Melvin snitches on George and Harold, and as evidence, shows Krupp footage of George and Harold tampering with the Turbo Toilet 2000, recorded by an invention Krupp asked Melvin to come up with himself, called the Tattle Turtle 200, a stuffed turtle with a nanny cam hidden inside of its head. This causes Krupp to decide to put the boys in separate classes and annihilate their friendship.

To prevent this, George hypnotizes Krupp with a 3D Hypno Ring he received out of a cereal box; the boys first order their principal to act like a chicken and a monkey. Finally, they see that Krupp bears a resemblance to Captain Underpants without his toupee and command him to be Captain Underpants. The boys soon learn the severity of their acts when Captain Underpants begins causing trouble around Piqua and take him to their treehouse. There they discover that they can turn Captain Underpants back into Krupp by splashing water on him and can turn him back by snapping their fingers. Believing that Krupp will continue with his plan to separate them, they decide to settle with Captain Underpants but insist that he be dressed up as Krupp under the pretense of a secret identity to which Captain Underpants agrees. His sudden personality change even manages to attract the attention and affection of the school's shy and clumsy lunch lady, Edith (Kristen Schaal).

Just when George and Harold believe that their troubles have ended, Jerome Horwitz Elementary School is visited by an odd, German-accented scientist named Professor P. (Nick Kroll). Captain Underpants (disguised as Krupp) immediately hires him to be a new teacher, but George and Harold are suspicious of him. As it turns out, Professor P. is seeking to get rid of laughter altogether, due to the fact that people have made fun of his full name (Professor Pee-Pee Diarrheastein Poopypants, Esq.) for years. He recruits Melvin to help him and soon finds out his brain is incapable of having fun.

Soon, Professor Poopypants tries to take over the town with a giant version of the Turbo Toilet 2000, fueled by the school cafeteria's rotten leftovers left out by Edith, and uses Melvin's brain to turn the children into glum, humorless zombies. Captain Underpants tries to stop the villain, but due to having no actual superpowers, is effortlessly defeated and thrown into the toilet. George and Harold are captured and turned into zombies, but begin laughing upon Professor Poopypants mentioning Uranus as one of the planets he would remove laughter from later. Due to this, they are able to break the trance and escape when their excessive laughter damages the Turbo Toilet 2000's computer. Upon consuming the mutated leftovers, Captain Underpants acquires superpowers and, with George and Harold's help, defeats and shrinks Poopypants, though he escapes shortly thereafter on a bee.

Knowing that they cannot control Captain Underpants, George and Harold destroy the Hypno Ring in an attempt to permanently change him back into Krupp. Feeling that Krupp would be nicer if he had friends, the boys set him and lovesick Edith up on a date, thus making Krupp have a change of heart; he returns the comics he took away from George and Harold, and even admits their comics are funny. However, the toxic waste from the Turbo Toilet 2000 transforms all the toilets into vicious monsters that attack the restaurant at which Mr. Krupp and Edith are dining. Upon snapping his fingers (accidentally), Mr. Krupp once again becomes Captain Underpants and flies away, carrying George and Harold away to help him fight them, much to Edith's surprise and admiration. As this happens, George says he thought destroying the Hypno-Ring would get rid of his powers and Harold exclaims his catchphrase said at the end of every Captain Underpants book, save the last, 'here we go again!'. Then, Captain Underpants stops in front of the moon to say "Tra-La-LAAA!!!" one last time to end the movie.

In a mid-credits scene, George and Harold realize that the secretary, Miss Anthrope (Grey Griffin), who they put on the phone before by faking a $1 billion contest has been on hold for the whole film. After Miss Anthrope accidentally hangs up and gets mad, George and Harold make a new comic based on her reaction titled "Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Stuck On Hold Woman".

"Why! It's! Captain Underpants!"

 * 1) Great animation that is faithful to the books. Similar to The Peanuts Movie, it looks like the characters actually came from the pages of a book, considering how DreamWorks Animation decided to use the low-budget when compared to other films from DWA and it was animated by Mikros Image and Technicolor Animation Productions, other than DWA Glendale, DWA India and now-defunct Pacific Data Images. Also, some scenes in the movie use different animation styles, such as a puppet scene, a short cutout animation segment, several 2D animated scenes, including the end credits style, and even a scene based off Flip-O-Rama.
 * 2) The film is essentially a gigantic love letter to the source material from the franchise, not only mixing the plots of the first four books, but also throwing in subtle references that only the truest Captain Underpants fans and Dav Pilkey himself would understand.
 * 3) The movie is an example of used for toilet humor done right and not being used as cheap ways to get laughs from young children, since there's plenty of great toilet humor in the movie. But here, it's essential the spirit of the book series it's based on.
 * 4) The film is a vast improvement over DreamWorks' last blunder which makes it pretty confusing to think how that film got a nomination for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars instead of this.
 * 5) Great voice acting that fits the characters perfectly, especially Ed Helms and Nick Kroll, except maybe Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch (see BQ# 3).
 * 6) Spawned a just as great animated series a year later in 2018.
 * 7) As a buddy film, the movie does do a subversion of the "best friends falling out and separating in the third act, only to reunite near the end" trope, they only separate because of Krupp's orders, and it's clear that they don't want to part ways.
 * 8) The focus is put solely on its comedy, which can be rather effective with a mix of the juvenile potty jokes and the self-aware jabs.
 * 9) George and Harold have a great friendship and chemistry here and they show why they are best friends (they met in kindergarten and became friends over their shared sense of humor).
 * 10) In this movie, we explore a little bit more of how's Mr. Krupp's character is outside the school and he can be even relatable, rather than him being the principal who's grouchy all the time and extremely mean to students like he is in the books. Even the author Dav Pilkey himself was impressed with Mr. Krupp's depiction in the film that he wishes he could have done the same back when he was still writing the series.
 * 11) The life lesson in the story was found in the movie: even if you're separated, you're still best friends with each other.
 * 12) Theodore Shapiro's score is fantastic.
 * 13) Weird Al's Captain Underpants theme song for the end credits is awesome and is a clever callback to the Weird Al (also known as "Weird Al" Yankovic or Alfred Matthew Yankovic) reference in the books.
 * 14) It has an amazing choice of songs for the soundtrack that fits the movie. Like "Think" by Adam Lambert, and "A Friend Like You" by Andy Grammar.
 * 15) It has some or most funny dialogue and jokes like when Mr. Krupp reads the school sign, "Come See My Hairy Armpits!"

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Although funny, sometimes the potty humor and some jokes can get a little repetitive.
 * 2) Melvin is very annoying antagonist, even Harold stated that out in the film.
 * 3) While Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch gave out great performances and were fitting casting choices for George and Harold, they sound too old to voice elementary school kids, especially compared to Jordan Peele as Melvin.

Reception
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie received generally positive reviews, with praising the animation, goofy yet charming humor, faithfulness and references to its source material, and voice acting, particularly from Helms. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on 137 reviews and an average rating of 6.89/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "With a tidy plot, clean animation, and humor that fits its source material snugly, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is entertainment that won't drive a wedge between family members.". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 70 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Box office
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie grossed $73.9 million in the United States and Canada and $51.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $125.5 million, against a production budget of $38 million. It is the lowest budget for a DreamWorks Animation feature film until Spirit Untamed was released in 2021 at a budget of $30 million.

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Trivia

 * This is the last DreamWorks Animation movie to be owned by 20th Century Fox before the two split their partnership and stopped owning the studio in 2018 with Universal Pictures taking their partnership and owning the studio by announcing a third How to Train Your Dragon film in 2019 as the first DreamWorks Animation movie to be owned by Universal Pictures.
 * DreamWorks' interest in the film rights to the Captain Underpants series dates back to when the first installment was published in 1997, but creator Dav Pilkey did not want to sell them.
 * This is the last DreamWorks Animation film to use the 2010 DreamWorks Animation SKG logo. Starting with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, a new logo is used.
 * Due to NBCUniversal's completed acquisition of DreamWorks Animation and further release date changes, it marks the last time both a DreamWorks film and an Universal/Illumination animated film have been theatrically released on the same month, with the Universal/Illumination animated film released being Despicable Me 3 which was released four weeks later than The Captain Underpants Movie.
 * A live-action film was planned as early as 1997 right before the first book was published and would have starred Chris Farley. The project was scrapped after Farley died.
 * According to director David Soren, in an early draft of the film there was going to be a small scene that confirms the Fanon theory that Edith is an Alien