by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
I’ve always had a soft spot for animation. More years than not, at least a couple of animated features find their way onto my top 10 list. So, I’m setting out to shine a light on some films that may have passed you by. The idea with Animation Celebration is to take a look at some underseen gems — so no Toy Story or Frozen here.
Let’s get started.
For being a down point in the release schedule, there’s no shortage of animated offerings this month, with both Transformers One and The Wild Robot set to hit theaters.
With one coming from the director of Toy Story 4and the other a DreamWorks production, there’s plenty of animated pedigree behind the offerings, but picking something that fit this topic was a little harder. In delving deeper into the more underseen DreamWorks films, the bottom is made up of movies that I think you could say are not good, but above that, there was one that hit me in the nostalgia.
Though I’d never seen Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, it took me back to my days of the Scholastic Book Fair. If the money you may have received came with the strings that you had to to buy a “book,” the graphic novel series, created by Dav Pilkey, was right up there with Ripley’s Believe It or Not and the Guinness Book of World Records as a class favorite. For those unfamiliar, the film follows George (Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch), creative pranksters that hypnotize their principal (Ed Helms) into thinking he’s a superhero named Captain Underpants — based on the comics they’ve written.
While the knock on kids’ movies is often that they’re too sophomoric, the bug is the feature here. The story is literally about a superhero called Captain Underpants, whose whole thing is making fun of superhero storytelling (even more prescient now than when the books debuted in 1997) and potty humor because elementary kids think it’s hilarious. You’re either willing to meet this movie on its wavelength, or you’re not. The movie knows what it is, and plays to that. The overdramatic, unrealistic nature fits the tone perfectly in a world where elementary students can hypnotize their principal into being a superhero they created using a cheap hypnotizer ring from a box of cereal and where the big bad boss is an evil, Albert Einstein ripoff terrorizing students with a giant toilet monster.
Inside the childish movie, director David Soren (Turbo and some Madagascar shorts) and the rest of the creative team made some really smart choices, particularly when it comes to having fun with the animation style. Our protagonists are creatives, and that creativity gets to really shine in some different sequences that don’t just utilize the normal 3D style. They utilize a fun graphic novel style, another utilizes sock puppetry, and event takes an opportunity to bring flip-o-rama to the big screen.
Look, as much as I love delving into arthouse animation, there’s something fun about a less serious entry every once in a while. If you’re nostalgic for these novels, I think there’s some fun to be had here, though I’m not sure how that charm holds if you’re going in cold.
Plus, if you make it to the end, you get a Weird Al title track.
I’m excited to continue to geek out on some great animated work you may not have had a chance to catch. Next month, I’ll try to find something that’s fitting for the spooky season.
You can read more from Jake Bourgeois, and follow him on Twitter and Letterboxd