Spongebob Squarepants: Sponge Out of Water (**½)
Directed by: Paul Tibbitt
Starring: Antonio Banderas, and the
voices of Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Clancy Brown, Carolyn
Lawrence, Mr. Lawrence, Paul Tibbitt, Matt Berry
Seen: February 28th 2015
**½ Out of ****
If you’re a fan of Spongebob
Squarepants, you will most probably enjoy Sponge Out of Water, as it is full of
the same kind of humour and ridiculous plot ideas as the series’ short episodes.
While it’s unquestionably true to the source material and remains faithful to
the characters, it’s a bit of a stretch to expand a Spongebob Squarepants story
to 92 minutes, as the usual segments are between 7 and 12 minutes in length,
with even full episodes mostly consisting of two to three segments at a time.
Thus it should come as no surprise that, while the movie is entertaining, it
does not maintain the high levels of hilarity and excitement of the short
episodes, and it also contains more than enough material that’s actually too
silly or slapstick for a Spongebob Squarepants story (yes, that is the aim of
Spongebob Squarepants, but this really scrapes the bottom of the barrel at
times), especially some live action sequences with Antonio Banderas. While the
jokes are pitched at a level anywhere between young adolescents and adults, the
mannerisms and physical humour (in live action scenes) cater more for toddlers
and pre-teens.
The movie takes a while to sputter to
life as the pirate Burger-Beard (Banderas) travels on his ridiculously strangely
scaled ship with a flock of talking seagulls (voiced by Director Paul Tibbitt, among
others) to an island where he searches for a magic book. The book, it turns
out, tells of Spongebob (Kenny), once again trying to protect the secret Krabby
Patty formula, sold exclusively at Mr. Krabs’ (Brown) restaurant, the Krusty
Krab. He protects it from Plankton (Mr. Lawrence), owner of the Chum Bucket; the
dead-quiet, zero-customer dump across the street. Plankton deceives them in
surrendering after a relatively hilarious war, and comes the closest he’s ever
been to actually stealing the formula, getting his hands on it. Spongebob stops
him at the last minute, but as they fight, the formula disappears. Excepting
Spongebob, everyone blames Plankton (he was trying to steal it) for the formula’s
disappearance and the subsequent and near-immediate shortage of Krabby Patties.
Spongebob helps Plankton to escape to help
him find the true culprit, and Bikini Bottom becomes a post-apocalyptic
wasteland in a matter of minutes. It’s up to Spongebob and Plankton to get the formula
back and save Bikini Bottom, and it will take a whole heap of oddness to get
there. Into play comes, among others, a time machine, a wise and old dolphin
charged with protecting the galaxy called Bubbles (Berry), Bubbles giving our
heroes the ability to breathe above the surface, and our heroes getting
transformed into superheroes: Spongebob is The Invincibubble, Patrick
(Fagerbakke) is Mr. Superawesomeness, Squidward (Bumpass) is Sour Note, Mr.
Krabs is Sir Pinch-a-Lot, Sandy is The Rodent, and Plankton is Plank-Ton. They
have to work together to defeat Burger-Beard (yes, the story-teller becomes the
villain) in the “real” world in an effort to return things to normal.
The out-of-water sequences are
thankfully not too protracted, as they are probably the weakest sequences in
the movie – it does best when it’s at home in the animated world of Bikini
Bottom. This is where it’s at its funniest and most entertaining, and this is
where the Spongebob Squarepants formula works.
While I enjoyed Spongebob Squarepants:
Sponge Out of Water, I would probably rather have re-watched some old episodes
or segments of the animated series, as it would have been mostly equally funny
but with far less unnecessary bloat.
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