Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

My stepfather has a term for the films aimed at our inner idiot adolescent boy: “jerk gene movies.” David Soren’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, with its literal toilet humor and multiracial, fourth wall-busting prankster heroes (voiced by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch), wants to be your child’s first jerk gene movie experience. Besties George and Harold first bonded in first grade over the inherent hilarity of a planet named Uranus, but their egg-shaped principal (Ed Helms) seeks to tear their friendship apart. When a plastic hypno-ring places the principal in their powers, George and Harold convince him that he’s the underwear-clad superhero from their comic books. Captain Underpants bursts with anarchic energy, and I still laugh out loud when I remember the villain voiced by Nick Kroll revealing his full name as Professor P. P. Diahrreastein Poopypants. Did I mention that the jerk gene is dominant, immutable and incurable? D.B.