Product: Spongebob Squarepants: Movie
Rating: 3.0
Smartly Surreal Cartoon Overextends Itself Toward Unwieldy Consequences
In ten-minute segments, SpongeBob Squarepants is perfectly entertaining in a vaudeville-meets-Bullwinkle manner, supremely silly and maddeningly clever at the same time. As a full-length feature clocking in at ninety minutes, this 2004 movie had my attention wandering despite the plethora of animated special effects. The main problem is the scope of the plot...it just keeps going on and on without a driving structure. In the TV series, a major part of the fun was how SpongeBob faced mundane dilemmas such as proving to Sandy (the Texas-twanged squirrel in the dive suit) the superiority of sea creatures over their land counterparts or driving his next-door neighbor and Krusty Krab co-worker, the octopi curmudgeon Squidward Tentacles, up the wall.Unfortunately neither Sandy nor Squidward play large parts in the movie, and instead we are presented an elaborate coming-of-age film with obligatory guest appearances by the likes of Alec Baldwin, Scarlett Johansson and even an age-defiant David Hasselhoff who plays a superhero version of himself. A bright yellow kitchen sponge who lives in a pineapple in Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob hangs out with his best friend Patrick, a Krabby patty-bellied, slow-minded (though not slow-witted) pink starfish. SpongeBob's dream is to become the manager of the new Krusty Krab II, which is conveniently opening next door to the original one.Meanwhile, there is a nasty plankton who wants to steal the secret recipe for Krusty Krab's burgers for his own place, the unfortunately named Chum Bucket. He hatches an elaborately devious plan to steal King Neptune's crown from his bald head and then frames SpongeBob's boss Mr. Krabs for the crime. The king freezes Krabs as punishment and gives SpongeBob six days to recover the crown from Shell City before Krabs is turned into dinner. This is just the set-up, and the bulk of the movie has Patrick accompanying SpongeBob on a hair-raising journey where all sorts of creepy creatures block their path, including an evil terminator-type named Dennis. Naturally, Neptune's beautiful daughter Mindy provides moral if rather ineffectual support. In the meantime, Plankton turns everyone into mindless drones back home.At heart, it's about how SpongeBob and Patrick want to be "men" and treated with respect. Its derivative "Wizard of Oz" structure has a lot of discomforting turns along the way. While funny in parts, the whole of the movie starts to feel elephantine and somewhat sadistic, though the concept of Shell City is one of the smarter plot devices. Hasselhoff's appearance in full Baywatch glory is rather surreal, but it does provide an amusing if overly contrived twist, as does the use of a Twisted Sister song to liberate the people (or more accurately, the sealife) of Bikini Bottom. The vocal performances are fine - Tom Kenny as SpongeBob and Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick with special kudos to Jeffrey Tambor for his vainglorious Neptune and Baldwin as the oily Dennis. The only high profile disappointment is Johansson who does not offer much personality as Mindy.There are several special features with the DVD package, including the standard making-of featurette. But the other short films are even more worthwhile since they are designed to increase viewer interest in the preservation of the oceans. One is "The Case of the SpongeBob", produced by Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean's Futures Society, which shows an array of sea creatures in their natural habitats with voiceover commentary by Cousteau; and the other is "Saving the Surf", produced by the Surfrider Foundation, which addresses the effect of pollution on coastal waters. Like Pixar's "The Incredibles", there are also animated storyboards to show deleted scenes.