Your parents were obviously total failures.

My son is in second grade. Well, he was, as the school year is already over for that lucky punk. Me? I have to trudge along for another couple of days.

There are a ton of things to worry about when you send your little one off to school, and as a teacher I'm privy to some super-sketchy insider information, but my wife and I routinely find ourselves fretting over one thing in particular.

We're not sure he has any friends.

Which is entirely brutal no matter how you look at it, but unless this dude's pulling a major Keyser Soze on us, I'm telling you, what breaks my heart in half?

He's a really nice kid.

As are George and Harold, the two main characters in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Well, they're at least really nice to each other. If you're a teacher, or worse, a principal, you might not be such a fan of this dynamic duo.

But somebody definitely likes these boys, to the tune of over 70 million books sold. Based on the wildly-popular series of kids' books by Dav Pilkey, this animated flick, while typically hyper-active and full of fart jokes, is shockingly (and pleasantly) a very nice story about friendship. After the dumpster fire that was the previously unmentionable kid's flick [review], my sites were pretty low...which may explain why I enjoyed the movie so much.

George and Harold have been in the same class for years. When they're not fighting the injustices of how boring and soul-sucking elementary school can be, these two goofballs are up in a rad tree house concocting yet another adventure of Captain Underpants, their homegrown comic book character.

After yet another prank has their principal Mr. Krupp threatening to separate the boys into different classes (and in their minds immediately ending their life-long friendship), George and Harold end up, of all things, hypnotizing the disgruntled head-of-school. Instead of a worst-case scenario, now our guys can instead focus on being best friends again. And endlessly embarrassing their principal along the way.

Even though I liked the movie, Captain Underpants is kind of the worst, you know?

While the humor is laser-focused on eight-to-nine year-old boys, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie somehow manages to be a solid crowd-pleaser nonetheless. The humor, pacing and overall look of the film, all help to perfectly capture the goofy and imaginative world of what it's like to be a kid. Or, at the very least, a young boy (little girls are waaaay smarter then us rock-throwing, fart-sniffing morons). I'm not sure I ever had a friend as good as either George or Harold (I had older brothers...which may have scared some of the nerdier types off), but I could certainly appreciate what these two dudes shared. And judging by his emphatic 10! ("I loved that movie!"), I think my son did too.

Speaking of things that I basically/magically created with my wiener, here are the Yays and Boos. I keep hoping that I can get a break from all these kid flicks, but sure enough, Cars 3 is soon to be staring me in the face, or parking on my neck, depending on how you want to look at things.

The lunchlady's voice is surprisingly brilliant.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

• There's a pretty rad little animated intro here that you might want to check out.
• I'm 900% sure my son didn't get them, but the constant Uranus jokes were actually appreciated. I snickered at the gas giant remark...like a moron.
• During the gloomy Invention Convention, someone of course invents something toilet-related. Also of course, it totally malfunctions. The result? An epic dance party. I think that falls under the of course category, too, doesn't it?
• An educator who can't run a television in front of a classroom full of students is a joke that will simply never, ever get old.
• Okay guys, serious business for a second. There's a two-minute part of this film that feels exactly like a scene from Sifl & Olly. That popping noise you just heard? That was my skull.
• Eventually our boys sneak into their principals house, and yes, it's as sad as you always imagined it to be. I'm pretty sure even his cereal was Not So Cheery-O's. (do all kids think their teachers have no lives? wait...don't answer that)
• A previous enshrinee in the 80s, Yellow's Oh Yeah, further cements its place in the soundtrack Hall-of-Fame.
• The breakdown of a child's brain, while played for laughs, seems like indisputable fact. Like, let's have a TED talk asap about this, please?
• There's a heavy use of random dolphins that I enthusiastically support.
• A running gag of someone being run over? Has someone been reading my dread journal again?
• Honestly, the fart/burp musical number was a little lowbrow for even me. That said, I'm not gonna lie, it totally slayed. I haven't heard that many kids laugh that loudly since I accidentally cursed during a lecture (I said 'ass' and it's the stuff of legends).
• Ah yes, the flip-o-rama. If I had a nickel for every time a kid showed me that part of a Captain Underpants book, well, I could probably make two or three local calls. On a payphone. In 1982.
• And finally, watching my son watch a movie that he was just so damn excited about. I know, I take him to all kinds of stuff, but he often plays it cool (like his dad, sadly) and you can't even tell he's having a good time. But this one? He was all in, being a goofy, nerdy, fun-loving kid. Yay!

Yes, this is Mr. Poopypants.
And also yes, he totally sucks.

Boooooooo!

• I swear I've heard more than one adult say Captain Underwear in reference to this film. Please, fellow Old People, say it right. Don't give them any more ammunition, okay?
• Dude, I have had some bad Principals before, like turrible, but Mr. Krupp is the worst. 
• Pranks in Movie School are funny. Pranks in Actual School? Typically not.
• Who is this Melvin kid? Goodness, I'd have to immediately report it, but can someone please kick this kid's ass? Or at least give him a wedgie of the atomic variety...
• Is it funny that this guy who thinks he's a superhero is basically an out-of-control psychopath? Seriously. I felt like I was laughing at someone with major mental health problems...which is something I'm not typically psyched to do. 
• Mr. Poopypants, yes...that's his name, is as bad as he sounds. Sadly, and perhaps an even bigger Boo? It all kind of makes sense. 
• At one point, the school (or something) is closed for ebola. If you only knew how many times the subject of ebola has been used as a joke in my classroom, you'd understand why I immediately buried my head in my hands as soon as this was uttered.
• And finally, remember when I mentioned the 'alleged' joke science of kid's brains? Well, funny as it was, ol' George and Harold, it turns out, have brains that basically find everything hysterical. The Boo? There are really kids like this. No, really. They exist. And they're terrifying.

Lately, time for blogging and coherent movie watching (more on this later) have each been damn near impossible to come by. The NBA and NHL Finals ate some of my delicious time, my brother Bryan's annual visit (more on this later) took its share, but the number one culprit for essentially murdering Two Dollar Cinema? My son's baseball team, the Pirates.

Yep, ol' m.brown has been not only dealing with kids all damn day, but now he's coaching them at night, too. Wait, what? You seem like a reasonable person, Blogger Guy... I know, I know. But when you have kids, you do a lot of dumb crap.

But guess what? Matty was selected to represent his team in the All-Star Game. Awesome possum, right? But what might be even, uh, awesomer? He was selected by his teammates.

Maybe he's a good kid after all, huh? Maybe he's actually got some friends after all.



(and maybe the kids at his school are a bunch of stinky a-holes)