CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

Director

Stephen Hillenburg

Year

2004

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

I have lately become a huge fan of the “SpongeBob SquarePants” TV show, catching every episode I can on TV and laughing my ass out with every one of them. It’s hilarious, full of visual and spoken gags and an unmatched sense of humor all the way. So all of a sudden I had the urge to watch The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, and when I did I wasn’t so happy. It’s SpongeBob all right, but the story didn’t hold as well in the long running time as it does in eleven and a half minutes on TV. It wasn’t fresh after long, and all in all it was slower because they had to stretch it. The humor was there, the gags were there, the characters were there, but it wasn’t the same.

The story involves SpongeBob’s boss, Mr. Krabs (voice of Clancy Brown), opening a second restaurant, the Krusty Krab 2, and disappointing SpongeBob (voice of Tom Kenny) by not naming him Manager despite his clearly being the best employee, losing the position to Squidward Tentacles (voice Rodger Bumpass). In the meantime, Mr. Krabs’ arch-nemesis Plankton (voice of Mr. Lawrence) realizes he’s only tried plans A to Y to steal the recipe to the Krusty Krab’s great success, the Krabby Patty. His plan Z is hilarious: to steal King Neptune’s crown and blame Mr. Krabs for it. King Neptune (voice of Jeffrey Tambor) is terribly upset by this because he’s bald and wants to destroy Mr. Krabs. His daughter Mindy (voice of Scarlett Johansson) manages to get him a chance to get the crown back, and SpongeBob volunteers to do so, along with his friend Patrick Star (voice of Bill Fagerbakke). Along the perilous way to the horrific Shell City, they’re pursued by Plankton’s hit man, Dennis (voice of Alec Baldwin).

Stephen Hillenburg’s world is fantastic. You just gotta love an underwater setting that breaks every rule of logic for the sake of laughter. The wacky characters are also genius. I love each and every one of them, especially Squidward. The movie focuses much more on the story but has enough gags to display the characters’ great wackiness.

You know when your beloved TV shows have a special episode where the characters go away for the whole running time and you just miss their usual setting? This is an example of that: the adventure takes SpongeBob and his pal Patrick away from their town, Bikini Bottom, and you just can’t match the fun of seeing SpongeBob preparing those Krabby Patties.

As for the animation, it’s definitely superior to that of the TV show, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. The simplicity of it on TV is some of what makes the show so great…

There are several hilarious sequences and songs that keep the thing going. The third act is the best, with a whole sequence in the overwater world and a fantastic cameo by David Hasselhoff that’s a stroke of genius. The other guest stars, who lend their voices, aren’t as showy; it’s always a pleasure to hear the voices of Scarlett Johansson and Alec Baldwin though.

There’s a recurrent theme about immaturity and childlikeness that more or less drives the plot. I wasn’t thrilled by this. While it was effective indeed in setting up very funny sequences in SpongeBob and Patrick’s adventure, it soon became a serious moral and didn’t seem to really belong to SpongeBob. The finale accentuated this and I was actually confused, expecting a last-second gag or something…

The film is framed by live-action scenes of pirates thrilled about the movie, which works like wonders.

I hate having mixed feelings about this film… But I’m still nuts about the show!

“I never thought I’d see it with me own eye… Tickets to the SpongeBob Movie!”

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