It suffers from a rushed, jumbled quality, and it displays a lot of tics that have become tiresome because DreamWorks has been doing them over and over again for 15+ years, ever since they worked in the original ' Shrek': these include frenetic action scenes, up-to-the-minute slang that will be dated six months from now, and the use of workhorse pop songs, including Aretha Franklin's 'Respect,' to pump up humor and sentiment even though the scene might've played fine without them. The moment where George solemnly tells Poopypants that his problem is that he can't laugh at himself, and Poopypants whines, 'Oh, is that really what my problem is, Oprah?' made me laugh so hard I thought my son was going to ask me to leave.

The way Kroll savors every syllable of his alternately peevish, self-pitying and nonsensical dialogue-aided mightily by the animators, who've given the character a fireplug body and a waddling walk-transforms the ridiculous into the sublime. (The toilet was originally a science fair entry made by the resident power-worshiping nerd, Jordan Peele's Melvin long story.) But you can also see why Poopypants is in a terrible mood 24/7. Yes, Poopypants is evil, and so fiendish and relentless that best buddies George ( Kevin Hart) and Harold ( Thomas Middleditch) and their principal-turned-superhero, Captain Underpants ( Ed Helms), who was created with a hypnosis ring taken from a cereal box, seem incapable of stopping him and his super-weapon, a walking, growling toilet that spits emerald goo derived from the school's discarded lunchroom food. Strangelove,' but there's an inner-directed exasperation to the performance that centers it and sometimes makes Poopypants comic book-deep, like a villain in a good Tim Burton movie. Scott from ' The Rocky Horror Picture Show,' with a touch of Peter Sellers as ' Dr. He's a little bit Mel Brooks' The 2000-Year Old Man, a little bit Dr. Remember when you were a kid and the funniest of your friends would do a specific silly voice that made you laugh no matter what they said, and once he figured out what an easy mark you were, he'd do the voice all the time, sometimes he did it right before you took a sip of orange juice to make you do a spit take? That's the kind of voice Kroll gives this character: an orange juice spit-take voice. Nevertheless, Kroll, a comedian and actor best known for 'The Kroll Show' and 'The League,' deserves above-and-beyond recognition for his irrepressibly silly voice as the movie's pint-sized, German-accented mad scientist bad guy, who poses as an elementary school science teacher and has flying wings of white hair poking out from his acorn-shaped head and wants to neutralize every living person's sense of humor so that they will never again laugh at his name, Professor Pee-Pee Diarrheastein Poopypants, Esq. They don't give out little gold men for vocal performances as supporting characters in cartoons, either, because there is no such category. Films as knowingly goofy and childish as 'Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie,' a DreamWorks feature about two friends who create an unlikely superhero and battle a super-villain to save their school, don't get nominated for Oscars, even for Best Animated Feature. Music, Theodore Shapiro editor, Matthew Landon.And the Oscar goes to. MPAA rating: PG for mild rude humor throughout CHV rating: G OFRB rating: G. Two overly imaginative pranksters named George and Harold, hypnotize their principal into thinking he's a ridiculously enthusiastic, incredibly dimwitted superhero named Captain Underpants.īonus features: The really cool adventures of Captain Underpants motion comic The Captain Underpants guide to being a hero The Professor Poopypants (totally original and supercool) guide to being a villain Missing underpants: deleted scenes Captain Underpants lyric video by 'Weird Al' Yankovic 'A friend like you: lyric video by Andy Grammer Kevin Hart and Ed Helms surprise fans Lunch lady PSA with Kristen Schaal Sock puppets real stars Tighty-whitey Q&A with the stars-part 1 and part 2 gallery: comic book covers gallery: the art of DreamWorks Captain Underpants: the first epic movie.ġ videodisc (90 min.) : sound, color 4 3/4 in.ĭVD NTSC, region 1 Dolby digital 5.1 (English) Dolby digital 2.0 (Spanish and French).

Captain underpants