Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (Hero Edition) [Blu-Ray]

Director: David Soren

Cast: Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Nick Kroll (VOICES)

Release Date: September 12, 2017

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 9/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

Synopsis:

This outrageous family comedy tells the story of two overly imaginative best friends, George (Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch), who hypnotize their principal (Ed Helms) into thinking he’s the hero from their comic books: Captain Underpants.

Based on the bestselling book series, ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ takes viewers into the world of best friends and school pranksters George (Hart) and Harold (Middleditch) who after being caught red handed for an epic prank find themselves in danger of being separated and placed in separate classrooms by their dastardly principal (Helms) who is intent to destroy their friendship in order to make his own life easier. But after accidentally hypnotizing their principal with a cheap trick ring they soon miraculously find him under their control and have him donning the identity of the comic book superhero they created: ‘Captain Underpants’. Now George and Harold must find a way to keep their little secret from coming out and quickly find themselves with a whole mess of problems to tackle including a careless and dimwitted superhero to keep in check.

Having never had the pleasure of the books it was based upon, nor even catching a trailer for the film I must admit I dove into ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ with little knowledge of the movie and what a glorious treat I was provided in the subsequent 90 minutes courtesy of this clever, exciting, hilarious and just flat out ridiculously fun animated ride that almost certainly finds itself among my all-time favorite DreamWorks Animation films. Brimming with heart, humor and an overall inviting tone that can’t help but promptly pull you in, it’s a wildly enjoyable animated journey for the entire family that always has a great deal of fun with itself along the way, and is only complimented all the more by the gorgeous animation always on display. Capably guided by director David Soren who previously made his feature length directorial debut with DreamWorks Animation’s ‘Turbo’ and further boosted by a talented and fitting voice cast that includes Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Nick Kroll, Thomas Middleditch and more, this animated good time certainly offers the goods all around. ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ should have no problem whatsoever keeping children and adults of all ages glued to the screen from beginning to end, and likely with a grin plastered on your face for the majority of that duration. It’s one truly fantastic animated film that I would strongly urge everyone to check out if you have the chance, and it should also make a perfect selection for a family movie night.

Overall, ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ is a clever and incredibly fun animated film that delivers plenty of goofy antics, laugh out loud moments and visually gorgeous animation; all forming together to make one truly special animated adventure for the entire family that’s not to be missed. I highly recommend ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’, it’s an insanely fun (and funny) animated adventure and one of the finest animated films to date from DreamWorks Animation. Fans of such animated features and households with children young and old (especially those who might also be fans of the books the film was based upon) will definitely want to make a point of giving this one a shot when you have the opportunity. It should make a great candidate for a family movie night or even a solo one when you simply want to relax, smile and have some carefree fun.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks outstanding in every possible way and delivers a sharp, detailed and brightly lit presentation that suffers no noticeable faults throughout. It holds up beautifully even during the heavily populated and darker sequences, never allowing anything occurring on screen to become negatively affected or rendered indiscernible; everything looking consistently fantastic down to each animated line. Overall, this is a phenomenal high definition video presentation that should have zero trouble satisfying fans of the film and first time viewers alike.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a lossless 7.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This lossless multichannel soundtrack sounds wonderful and offers a crisp, clean and often quite aggressive audio presentation throughout. It frequently takes advantage of all seven available channels in order to send action and prank related auditory effects, along with crowd chatter and plenty more regularly whipping throughout the various speakers and never causing any dialogue or other auditory elements that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible in the process. Overall, this is a top notch 7.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtrack that compliments the film splendidly and contributes plenty of additional fun to the overall viewing experience.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ includes a number of fun and amusing extras. Included on the release is ‘The Really Cool Adventures of Captain Underpants Motion Comic’ (running approximately 3 minutes in length), in addition to a collection of fun videos, Featurettes and more including: ‘The Captain Underpants Guide to Being a Hero’ (running approximately 4 minutes), ‘The Professor Poopypants (totally original and supercool) Guide to Being a Villain’ (approximately 4 minutes), ‘Missing Underpants: The Deleted Scenes of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ (11 minutes in total), ‘Captain Underpants Lyric Video by “Weird Al” Yankovic’ (2 minutes), ‘”A Friend Like You” Lyric Video by Andy Grammer’ (4 minutes), ‘Kevin Hart and Ed Helms Surprise Fans’ (2 minutes), ‘Sock Puppets Real Stars’ (30 seconds) and ‘Tighty-Whitey Q&A with the Stars’ which is broken into 2 parts (running 1 minute apiece). Also included are the ‘Theatrical Trailer’ for the movie (approximately 2 minutes), 2 ‘Galleries’: ‘Comic Book Covers’ & ‘The Art of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’, and ‘The World of DreamWorks Animation’ which features music videos and other small goodies for each member of the DreamWorks animated family.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

Film Rating: 9/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

‘Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie’ is Now Available to own on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD from DreamWorks Home Entertainment & Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

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