Product: Spongebob Squarepants: Movie
Rating: 3.0
It's a shame there's almost nothing to laugh at.
There are a few nearly hysterical lines in Spongebob Squarepants, "Spongebob, she's hot." being about the best (just wait until it's in context, you'll get it.)Unfortunately there's about two other laugh out loud moments in 88minutes, the rest is just nautical nonsense.The film opens episodically with very little sense of direction or plot. The scenes are trying to set up an emotional center, Spongebob being upset about not being promoted to manager of the Krusty Krab 2, wanting to be a man not a boy (a theme explored in the show when Spongebob had a lipstick kiss from his grandma.)Unfortunately Spongebob is way to shallow here to really gain any ground developmentally.When Planktin steals King Triton's Crown and frames Mr. Krabs for it (should have been hysterical, but was so predictable not even the kids giggled) Krabs is left frozen solid and Spongebob with six days (rather than two weeks, thank you Patrick)to recover it from the Cyclops of Shell City.From there the movie drags into a long, unsatisfying journey to the ass of David Hasslehoff (a wasted cameo, too disgusting and grotesque to be funny and I like disgusting and grotesque -- see, Evil Dead --) There's also a hit man, sent by Plankton, to stop them as uses chum buckets to enslave the Bikini Bottom dwellers.Key Characters, Sandy, Mrs. Puff, Squidward are mostly left out of the film (what a shame, Sandy would have added a lot to the little quest portion of the movie.) And wasted, dismally, is Scarlet Johansson as Tritons daughter ("wow, you're pretty...") What's truly lacking is any real attempt from Spongebob to do anything he doesn't have to. The entire journey is one of desperation and dumb luck but not played to either laughs or drama (remember how Shrek, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles do both???)So lacking in plot, character depth and humor does the film at leas boast some great hand drawn animation for the big screen? No. This is just an 88min episode that looks no better than the TV Show. Nick has really dropped the ball since Rugrats and Jimmy Neutron, Thornberries, Rugrats go Wild and Spongebob are all unimaginative cookie cutter films lacking anything you can't get from the regular show.There's a reason to go to the movies, a reason to want to see characters normally in 15 minute plots get an hour and a half, but Spongebob Squarepants leaves out most of them. In the end it will breeze over you and other than some really nasty CGI work on Hasslehoff you'll leave not feeling queasy, but you won't bring anything positive with you either, just an idea that it was, well, okay.