Rating: 5.5
The new SpongeBob movie may be a silly romp for kids and younger teens, but for adults, “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” might be a fish out of water.
Initially set in the fictional undersea town of Bikini Bottom, “Sponge Out of Water” stars the titular sponge as he cheerily works at Bikini Bottom’s most popular fast-food restaurant, “The Krusty Krab.”
The citizens can’t get enough of the Krabby Patty, the Krusty Krabs’ featured burger, and money-hungry boss and owner Mr. Krabs can’t get enough of their money. All is well in Bikini Bottom until Plankton, a jealous rival of Mr. Krabs, attempts yet another over-the-top scheme to steal the key to Krabs’ success: the Krabby Patty secret formula. Amidst the chaos of his attempt to obtain it, the secret formula seems to magically disappear, with no one knowing — not even Plankton — where it has gone.
Panicked by the news that the formula is gone and the Krusty Krab is out of Krabby Patties, the town of Bikini Bottom is cast into a post-apocalyptic setting. Having lost everything they love, SpongeBob and Plankton are forced to put aside their differences and work together to find the formula and save the day.
“Sponge Out of Water” is a prime example of gags first, story later. With zany humor filling the vast majority of the one-hour-33-minute run time, this film has little else to offer in the realm of entertainment. It’s SpongeBob after all, a style of show that’s had kids laughing at its absurdity for the past 15 years, but the lack of story in this second installment makes even the first “SpongeBob SquarePants” movie look structured — which, let’s be honest, wasn’t that great.
The most developed and interesting character in this film was Plankton, but the movie is supposed to be starring SpongeBob, who was left as a bit more of a caricature of his former self. The rest of the characters, consisting of SpongeBob’s best friend Patrick, his squirrel pal Sandy, and his curmudgeon of a neighbor and co-worker, Squidward, all seemed to be just background characters to fill the void that this story created. For those who grew up on this wacky, slapstick style of a show, it still has some charm left in it with a few references and chuckles throughout, but the fast story, fast humor and fast jokes are all geared toward younger kids with little attention-span.
The film quickly skips from one topic to the other, almost like flipping through channels on your television, or binging on videos from Youtube. The beginning goes from war action, using fast food products and condiments, then skips to a theme similar to “Road Warrior” in the post apocalyptic era, then to time travel and space adventure reminiscent of “Interstellar,” then to live action and CGI on land with a theme pretty much ripped straight from Marvel’s “The Avengers.” This all happens within an hour and a half, so needless to say this film is not really something that focuses on one theme or story for very long.
On the positive side, the voice acting in this movie is well done, with Tom Kenny leading the bill as the voice of SpongeBob and Mr. Lawrence contributing as the voice of Plankton. The animation quality is good in this film as well, as the animators had several styles to capture — cartoon, CGI and some stop motion — and they did so flawlessly. The CGI characters in the last act of the movie looked clean and well produced, and might even be better than some of the CGI visual effects in other films like “300: Rise of An Empire” or newly-released “Seventh Son.”
The film’s directors, Mike Mitchell and Paul Tibbitt, put in a good tag-team effort to keep this movie true to the SpongeBob of the last 10 years that kids today know and love. Mitchell, who directed “Shrek Forever After,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Sky High,” is no stranger to films geared for younger kids and families, and his directing style remains true to that demographic in “Sponge Out of Water.” Tibbitt, on the other hand, has been a writer for the “SpongeBob SquarePants” show for many years now, and is able to put his knowledge of the show into the film, bringing back fan favorite references like random background shouts of “My leg!” into the mix, which was fun to see.
Outside the demographic of young kids, for adults and older teens, this film will most likely be something to experience with the intention of bringing your kids or to kill some time with friends. To see this with the intention of personal enjoyment might be a bit of a stretch.