If there was one movie I have been waiting to talk about it would be this one. I was a huge SpongeBob fan as a kid, and even today I still have a love for the cheery yellow sponge. I even purchased a full DVD set of the first one-hundred episodes, and if there is any merchandise I'm going to buy, it is either going to be Disney, My Little Pony, or SpongeBob. So, I have been waiting to revisit this movie and give it a review on this blog, and since the most anticipated releases this year are 40 minute specials of Rocko's Modern Life and Invader Zim, the timing is perfect. While SpongeBob was not the first Nicktoon to have it's own movie, prior to this was Rugrats, and if we want to include other Nickelodeon shows, Good Burger predates that as well, but this is the first one I remember and it was probably the first one most people my age saw, also I'm not a big fan of Rugrats or Klasky-Csupo so, SpongeBob it is.
Full disclosure, I actually wanted to review the Hey Arnold Jungle Movie this week, but I had some trouble with it, and decided to cut it for the time being. This is getting to be a bad habit, I know, I'm going to try and get better at it. Though, I think I've been looking at enough movies from this decade, I should be branching out into older decades, I realize the 2000s is not that old of a decade, but I do need to look at more movies from then. Anyway, I do apologize for the change, I am going to work on it.
So, what is the plot of the SpongeBob movie? Well after getting passed on a promotion at work, SpongeBob has to prove he is not a kid when Plankton steals King Neptune's crown and frames Mr. Krabs and he and Patrick must go through horrible obstacles such as a dangerous trench, a tough-guy biker bar, and the most challenging of them all, David Hasslehoff, and return the crown within six days to free Mr. Krabs. Meanwhile, Plankton steals the Krabby Patty formula and uses this opportunity to take over Bikini Bottom, can SpongeBob and Patrick save the day? I think as a cinematic adventure for SpongeBob, this is a good plot. SpongeBob does not leave Bikini Bottom very often, or did not at this point, so a plot that took him out of his usual environment was kind of cool, and it also briefly took him to the surface world which only happened once or twice in the series prior. Plotwise, the movie is solid, while it may have a couple hiccups here and there, I never found anything distracting, and I only had one question with the plot; What was the timeline of events?
Okay, so SpongeBob and Patrick spend one day to get to destination A, there they see a sing that tells them they have five days to go to get to their main destination. We have no time skip from there to destination B, so we can assume it was one day. Then after the trench they get caught by a "Cyclops" (Really a Scuba Diver in a dry suit) and are trapped there for, as far as we can tell the rest of the night. However, when we cut back to King Neptune, he is saying that the time has ran out and Mr. Krabs is on death row. So, either, they spent three days on the road instead of one, or they were unconscious for three days in Shell City, or King Neptune is a lying jerk. It is a weird problem with the plot, but I'm not sure it is a major one. I didn't notice it as a kid, and I don't think a lot of kids will, not that kids won't, some kids will probably notice, but even then there is more to this movie than the plot.
This movie is definitely more of a comedy than the last cartoon adaptation I reviewed. Though My Little Pony is more of a slice of life/fantasy series, where as SpongeBob is mostly a comedy series. When it comes to the humour, I did find myself laughing at a lot of the jokes. It is tough to talk about the humour of a movie because, you don't want to spoil the jokes, but you also don't want to leave it vague, so I'm going to say, it is not the funniest movie I've ever seen, I do think the sequel might give it a run for its money, but it is a funny movie.
Character wise, the majority of the cast of the show comes back in some way. If you love SpongeBob, Patrick and Plankton, they have the majority screen time of the cast. Plankton might be a bit too evil in this movie, and I do think they could have written a better angle on his turn to dictatorly madness, but he was still fun to watch. As for the new characters, King Neptune is funny, though is your standard "King" character. Princess Mindy is kind and wants her father to be more compassionate, she is not a bad character, but is not the best character in the movie. That would go to the other antagonist of the movie, Dennis, a killer for hire sent by Plankton to dispose of SpongeBob and Patrick. He is just awesome, he is that character you kind of see as the epitome of cool when you're younger, but as an adult you see the humour of his character, I mean, he wears sunglasses, over his sunglasses, that's kind of funny. When it comes to the characters, I have no complaints with this movie, while I would have liked to see the rest of the main cast have more screentime, I did enjoy the new characters, the sequel would do this aspect better, but I'll review that when I have a physical copy.
Animation wise, I mean it is a television cartoon being put in theatres, of course the animation looks wonderful. That being said, I did notice some moments that seemed off, I thought there were times lip syncing was off when they could get away with it. That being said, it was only really noticeable when I paid close attention. Other than that, the rest of the animation is smooth and the colours match the mood. When the scene is cheery and child friendly, it's full of bright colours, when Plankton takes over, the scene becomes dark and muddy, the trench itself is dark and eerie with less browns and more greens, the Trench is also dark, but with more of a blue tone. It's cool to see how many different sets of colours can be used with bright and dark settings. On the other side of the technical, the music isn't bad, background music does its job, and even Motörhead get a musical cameo. The main songs of the movie are also good, I really enjoyed the silliness of the "Now That We're Men" song, and the "Goofy Goober Rock" parody of "I Wanna Rock" is one of the most memorable parts of the movie, even if it is a bit of a deus ex machina. Of course, the voice actors do a good job, and the live action portions are done decently, on the technical aspects, this movie is fine.
As a SpongeBob fan, I can say that if you love the show's early seasons, you'll love the movie. If you are new to the series, I don't think I'd recommend you start here. Looking at the movie critically, it does have some flaws, but as a whole, it is an entertaining movie. I am tempted to dock it points for its flaws, as when you focus on them they are big, but personally speaking, I only thought that after I finished the movie, and during the movie, I enjoyed my time. So, while I would label this a slight recommendation, I think as a whole, it is a movie worth seeing, especially if you are a fan of the show, though in that case, you have probably already seen it.
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