Captain Underpants (U)

Three stars

Dir: David Soren

Voices: Kevin Hart, Ed Helms

Runtime: 89 minutes

DREAMWORKS, the people who brought you Shrek and Madagascar, do their bright and breezy animated stuff with the bestselling Dav Pilkey books about a superhero with a difference. Harold and George (voiced by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch) are the junior school brains behind the Captain Underpants comics.They are also pranksters supreme and the bane of their headmaster’s life. When he decides to separate them, can Captain Underpants, who makes Bridget Jones and her big knickers look like an amateur, fly to the rescue? Many of the gags early on are aimed at older cinemagoers, but once the potty humour starts in earnest younger patrons will soon catch up on the giggle count.

Monster Island (PG)

One star

Dir: Leopoldo Aguilar

Voices: Fiona Hardingham, Jenifer Beth Kaplan

Runtime: 80 minutes

THIS Mexican animated adventure about a boy in search of answers about his past is long on edgy style and short on everything else. Young Lucas seems like an ordinary teen, albeit one who has to take a special spray with him everywhere. What happens when he doesn’t use the device is revealed one night at a high school party, leading Trunk on a quest that will eventually take him to the titular island. Leopoldo Aguilar’s picture is animation of the not at all cuddly kind, complete with scenes of an exploding frog, electrocution, female characters in shapes that make Jessica Rabbit look like Twiggy, and clunky to non-existent humour.