"Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie" is an American English-language film from this year (2017) that runs for approximately 1.5 hours and is among the contenders for a spot as an Oscar nominee in the Best Animated Feature category. You probably have not heard too much yet about director Soren and writer Stoller, but they are both relatively experiences. By the way I am writing this review as somebody who watched the film today, but has never come across the Dav Pilkey novels that this is based on. Okay the story is about two best friends at school who hypnotize the principal into believing he was a superhero wearing nothing but his underpants because many superheroes kinda do. It is a pretty ridiculous plot, but the film is never essentially about that, but about the amazing love to detail that makes this one also worth seeing for grown-ups. It is 100% comedy, even if there is here and there a reference to society or characters that is not entirely comedic like the one about loneliness. But the moments that make this movie worth seeing are all about the fun, like when that stuffed camera animal looks sad when we hear that the principal even has it with him under the shower. And there are really many of these, at least one every 2-3 minutes. It is definitely a witty work.
But it also makes me a bit sad that the film is overall so pointless. If there is any message in here, then it is that friendship and love are better than being alone and that you should not take yourself so seriously and laugh about your own name too if it's Poopypants and that fart jokes and sounds and vulgar obscene humor is not childish, but accurate. I am not sure if I can agree with that. Anyway, from a translator perspective I found the Uranus/Urahn part especially interesting as I watched the film in German and they really did their best there in mastering the impossible challenge to not have one of the key jokes (appeared twice) getting lost in translation. As for the film itself, it was definitely a fun watch and almost all characters were memorable somehow, which shows again how well-written it all is, and another success for Jordan Peele who's truly enjoying a terrific 2017. I won't go into any great detail about the other voice actors here as I have watched the German version, so didn't hear any of them. But there are some fairly famous names in the list and you can check them out for yourself. I can see why this film has such an amazing reception at RT with the IMDb rating being relatively mediocre though. The title implies that they may make a sequel at some point and I'm all for it. Until then, this film here gets a thumbs-up from me and at this point it may be the best 2017 animated film I have seen so far, even if many contenders for the Oscars (especially Coco) are yet to be released. Captain Underpants gets a thumbs-up from me. 90 minutes very much worth seeing.
But it also makes me a bit sad that the film is overall so pointless. If there is any message in here, then it is that friendship and love are better than being alone and that you should not take yourself so seriously and laugh about your own name too if it's Poopypants and that fart jokes and sounds and vulgar obscene humor is not childish, but accurate. I am not sure if I can agree with that. Anyway, from a translator perspective I found the Uranus/Urahn part especially interesting as I watched the film in German and they really did their best there in mastering the impossible challenge to not have one of the key jokes (appeared twice) getting lost in translation. As for the film itself, it was definitely a fun watch and almost all characters were memorable somehow, which shows again how well-written it all is, and another success for Jordan Peele who's truly enjoying a terrific 2017. I won't go into any great detail about the other voice actors here as I have watched the German version, so didn't hear any of them. But there are some fairly famous names in the list and you can check them out for yourself. I can see why this film has such an amazing reception at RT with the IMDb rating being relatively mediocre though. The title implies that they may make a sequel at some point and I'm all for it. Until then, this film here gets a thumbs-up from me and at this point it may be the best 2017 animated film I have seen so far, even if many contenders for the Oscars (especially Coco) are yet to be released. Captain Underpants gets a thumbs-up from me. 90 minutes very much worth seeing.