Product: Spongebob Squarepants: Movie
Rating: 5.0
Hilariously Absurd
Once upon a cable network, there was a born a fantastic little animated program. A hilarious, original, and bizarre show about a flamboyant sponge who lives under the sea, flips burgers at an aquatic fast-food joint, blows bubbles, and embarks on wacky misadventures with his best friend Patrick (a starfish), despite the grumpiness of his next-door neighbor, Squidward, who is also his co-worker. This show was "Spongebob Squarepants".Well, needless to say, I've been a big fan of Spongebob since the beginning. When I heard there was going to be a film based on this wonderful show, I wasn't quite sure how to feel. A part of me rejoiced over the very idea of feature-length Spongebob, yet another part of me was very much worried that this would turn out to be another run-of-the-mill kids movie full of fart jokes and supposedly "funny" scenes where the characters suddenly start dancing to some Britney Spears song.Well, as you probably noticed from my rating, my hopes were more than satisfied.The film is every bit as hysterical as the very best episodes of the television show, featuring some of the most random, bizarre, and completely ridiculous humor ever put on film, and it probably helps that this always made for my favorites episodes of Spongebob.The film finds Spongebob and Patrick embarking on an epic journey to recover the malevolent King Neptune's (the ruler of Bikini Bottom, the town where Spongebob resides) crown, which the evil Plankton stole and framed Mr. Krabs (Spongebob's boss) for. Along the way, they encounter rough thugs, monsters, a contract killer sent to stop them, and a deep-sea diver out to turn them into "humorous dioramas".The film showcases slightly sharper animation than the show, dead-on comic timing, and plenty of completely ludicrous and absurd situations, including a particularly memorable sequence in which Spongebob and Patrick ride "The (David) Hasselhoff" out to sea. The music in the end credits is actually quite impressive, as well, featuring Ween, The Flaming Lips, and Wilco.The film's only flaw are the tedious and unfunny, yet thankfully seldom, live-action sequences. The aforementioned Hasselhoff scene being an exception, of course.But those segments aside, "The Spongebob Squarepants Movie" is a hilarious celebration of the off-beat and actually turns out being a little bit epic.9/10