Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is a 2017 American animated superhero comedy film based on Dav Pilkey's children's novel series Captain Underpants, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. 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 was released during the 20th anniversary of the Captain Underpants series. In the film, fourth-grade pranksters George and Harold hypnotize their humorless principal Mr. Krupp into thinking he is a superhero named Captain Underpants. The movie loosely adapts the first, second, fourth, and eleventh Captain Underpants books.
Captain Underpants:
The First Epic Movie
- Mireille Soria
- Mark Swift
Matthew Landon
- May 21, 2017 (Regency Village Theater)
- June 2, 2017 (United States)
89 minutes[2]
United States[3]
English
$38 million[4]
$125.4 million[5]
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 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. The film received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the animation, humor, faithfulness, and references to its source material, and voice acting, particularly from Helms. It grossed $125 million worldwide against a budget of $38 million, the lowest budget for a DreamWorks Animation feature film until Spirit Untamed, which had a budget of $30 million.[6]
It was one of two DreamWorks films to be the last to be distributed by 20th Century Fox alongside The Boss Baby. Following NBCUniversal's acquisition of DreamWorks Animation in 2016, Universal Pictures began distributing DreamWorks's films, starting with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019).
A Netflix television series, The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, aired from 2018 to 2020, while a spin-off film, Dog Man, is set to release on January 31, 2025 by Universal.[7]
Plot[edit]
In Piqua, Ohio, best friends George Beard and Harold Hutchins are fourth-graders who create comic books about a superhero named "Captain Underpants". They attend Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, where their excessive pranks put them at odds with their cruel principal, Mr. Krupp. One day, they are caught on camera tampering with their classmate Melvin Sneedly's invention, the Turbo Toilet 2000. Mr. Krupp prepares to put George and Harold in separate classes in hopes of ending their friendship.
George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp using a "3-D Hypno-Ring" from a cereal box and commands him to become Captain Underpants, leading him to cause trouble around town. After taking him to their treehouse, the boys discover that they can turn Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp by splashing water on him and back into Captain Underpants by snapping their fingers. To keep Mr. Krupp from separating them, they convince Captain Underpants that Mr. Krupp is his "secret identity". His change in personality attracts the affections of the school's shy lunch lady, Edith.
Meanwhile, evil scientist Professor Pee-Pee Diarrheastein Poopypants, Esq. is hired as the school's new science teacher, though George and Harold are suspicious of his short-tempered and violent behavior. It is revealed that Poopypants, who invented a Nobel Prize-winning "sizerator" capable of shrinking and enlarging things, is sick of never being taken seriously due to his name, and seeks to eliminate all laughter. With Captain Underpants as principal, the school becomes a livelier place, but a rainstorm turns Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp, who officially places George and Harold in separate classes.
Poopypants recruits Melvin to his plan and attacks the school with a giant version of Melvin's Turbo Toilet 2000 fueled by Edith's toxic leftovers. He also uses Melvin's brain to power a ray that turns the students into dull, humorless zombies. Captain Underpants tries to stop them but, having no superpowers, is thrown into the toxic waste. George and Harold are captured, but the power of a joke that made them friends in kindergarten overloads the Turbo Toilet 2000, returning the kids to normal and causing Melvin to become trapped in a giant toilet paper. The toxic leftovers give Captain Underpants real superpowers and, with George and Harold's help, he defeats and shrinks Poopypants, who escapes on a bee.
Unable to control Captain Underpants forever, George and Harold destroy the Hypno-Ring to permanently change him back into Mr. Krupp, but swear to remain friends. However, after realizing that Mr. Krupp would be nicer if he had friends, they set him and Edith up on a date, causing Krupp to have a change of heart and return the comics he confiscated from George and Harold. However, the toxic waste from the Turbo Toilet 2000 transforms the toilets at a scrapyard into an army of Talking Toilets, which attack the restaurant where Mr. Krupp and Edith are dining. After unwittingly snapping his fingers, Mr. Krupp is once again transformed into Captain Underpants, to Edith's surprise and admiration, and he flies away with George and Harold to face their next adventure.
In a mid-credits scene, Miss Anthrope accidentally disconnects the call she has been on hold for during the entire scenario and erupts in anger, turning it into a comic book titled "Captain Underpants and the Attack of Stuck On-Hold Woman".
Music[edit]
Soundtrack[edit]
"Weird Al" Yankovic wrote and performed the theme song for the film (which is possibly a reference to the first book, wherein Mr. Krupp mentions one of George and Harold's pranks was rigging the school intercoms to "play "Weird Al" Yankovic songs full blast for 6 hours straight"), which was featured in a lyric video. Andy Grammer wrote another original song for the film, titled "A Friend Like You".[19] The film also features music from Adam Lambert, Cold War Kids member Nathan Willett, and Lil Yachty.[19] An 11-track soundtrack album was released digitally on June 2, 2017, by Virgin Records and Deep Well Records.[20]
Release[edit]
Theatrical[edit]
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie was previously scheduled to be released on March 10, 2017,[17] but in September 2015, The Boss Baby took over its date.[21] The film was then moved to June 2, 2017, and was released by 20th Century Fox.[22][23] Other territories such as Europe and Asia received the film between July and October 2017. It premiered on May 21, 2017, at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles.[24] The film was chosen along with Sony Pictures Animation's The Emoji Movie to inaugurate the removal of Saudi Arabia's cinema ban through a double feature screening on January 13, 2018, organized by Cinema 70; they were the first two movies to be given an official public screening in the country in 35 years.[25]
Home media[edit]
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie was released on Digital HD on August 29, 2017, and on DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray on September 12, 2017, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment,[26] and has been released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in certain territories. From January 2018 to July 2019, the film was available on Netflix, the film returned to the streaming platform after 4 years on July 10, 2023.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
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.[5]
In North America, the film was released alongside Wonder Woman, and was projected to gross around $20 million from 3,434 theaters in its opening weekend.[27] It made $8 million on its first day and $23.9 million in its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office, behind Wonder Woman ($103.3 million).[28][29] The film grossed $12.2 million in its second weekend, $7.2 million in its third and $4.3 million in its fourth.[30]
Critical response[edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on 138 reviews and an average rating of 7/10. 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."[31] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 70 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[32] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[28]
Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars. Although Seitz pointed out that the film is hampered by "a rushed, jumbled quality" and has "tiresome" features that he says are common to DreamWorks, such as "frenetic action scenes ... and the use of workhorse pop songs", he emphasized that "[t]hey've approached this compendium of elemental slapstick and unabashed childishness with the reverence that the Coen brothers brought to No Country for Old Men." He further added that the inclusion of the flipbook interludes are the film's best parts, especially in having the pages accidentally be torn similar to the real books, stating that "[i]t's not often that a movie puts a spotlight on a mundane ritual in your own life that you never realized was profound and says, 'You probably forgot about this, but I want you to remember it and savor it because it meant something.'"[33]