Family-friendly animation tends to be underrepresented on ccpopculture, which reflects my biases. When invitations to the latest Despicable Me 7 or whatever comes around, I tend to disregard them; I’d prefer a trashy horror flick to a competent kid’s film. After seeing positive word-of-mouth for Captain Underpants, I bucked the trend to check the film out.

It quickly proved why I avoid these films; they’re not for me. If I were eight years old again, Captain Underpants – a film about a pair of infant comic-creators who hypnotise their tyrannical principal into becoming the titular, underdressed superhero – would’ve been right up my alley. It flows with the unquestioned logic of prepubescence, zipping from scene to scene with fluid imagination and a fair share of toilet humour. And the family audience watching the film seemed to be digging it; a young lady behind spent the first half hour of the screening ponder “Where’s Captain Underpants?” aloud.

While Captain Underpants is colourful, comedic and … competent, it’s just not my kinda scene. The film doesn’t even have the generosity to intersperse its runtime with the ‘just-for-the-adults’ gags common to this subgenre, and I found myself appreciating, most of all, the sub-90 minute runtime.