Product: Spongebob Squarepants: Movie
Rating: 5.0
Hilarious animated adventure!
This was my first exposure to the SpongeBob phenomenon. Having avoided the series for years, my wife and I finally rented the movie DVD for our toddler daughter. Amazingly, we wound up enjoying the movie as much, or even more, than our daughter did!The underwater world of SpongeBob is lovingly created with wit, charm, sass, and not just a little societal tongue-in-cheek. SpongeBob himself is a remarkably engaging little fellow, at once credulous and simple and immature, yet pure and innocent and impossible not to adore, once the action gets going and you see the goodness in his spongey little heart. Likewise for Patrick, the lobotomized starfish.Plankton steals the show, however, as the maniacal microbe with visions of ocean-wide domination. Displaying perhaps animation's worst case of Short Man Syndrome, Plankton had me laughing out loud at several points in the film, and my hat is off to the voice actor who brought Plankton to life. Not since Mike Meyers' Doctor Evil have I found myself enjoying a villain this much. All hail Plankton!Those seeking a super-complex plot, are liable to be disappointed. But plot isn't the point. As I would learn when I eventually began watching the series on television, the movie is simply the universe of SpongeBob writ large, bigger and bolder, with a better soundtrack, and (of course) David Hasselhoff!Kudos to Hasselhoff for proving that he's not afraid to laugh at himself. And kudos to veteran screen actor Jeffrey Tambor for voicing King Neptune. ("Ballld! Balllld!!!") In fact, a number of familiar faces and voice inhabit this show, which was an unexpected delight, and gave it a level of authority and authenticity that I did not expect.If you want a family-friendly all-around-fun romp of a movie, I would highly recommend this. As both a stand-alone film, and a primer/introduction to the series, I had to give this one five stars.