Product: Spongebob Squarepants: Movie
Rating: 4.0
Nothing wrong with being just a kid - a bizarre and hilarious film that captures the essence of the television show
It's promotion day at the Krusty Krab, and Spongebob Squarepants is certain he'll make manager. Sadly, his boss thinks he's just a kid (and, as everybody knows, to be a MANager, you have to be a MAN - or at least a grownup). Everything changes when Mr. Crab's evil archenemy Plankton hatches yet another nefarious plot to steal the Crabby Patty formula, and rule the world. Then, it turns out that Spongebob and his hapless and clueless best friend Patrick are the only ones who can save Bikini Bottom from disaster, and prove their manliness (and musical chops) along the way.The Spongebob Squarepants television show is hit or miss. Sometimes it's insane funny, and other times feels more like generic silliness. When it's on, though, it's on, and there's nothing more clever or funny in daytime cartoon television. Here, in its first and only big screen version, it runs on all four cylinders, hitting just the right mix of surreal and silly. My son just put it on last night and I saw it with him for the umpteenth time since we saw it in the theaters, and, as always, it was funny as ever. You could say that this film "gets" that what's funniest about Spongebob is the way it depicts the world of adulthood as it might appear to children - and Spongebob at least manages to fall into both camps - he doesn't live at home, and manages to hold down a steady job as a highly skilled and somewhat professional fry cook, and yet his best friend is at best infantile, and he himself does not act like a grownup. Highly recommended for lovers of the television series, but even if you've never seen the show it's very funny, absurd and over the top silly, and much more clever than most of the more mainstream blockbuster animation flicks.