Ani-MAY-tion: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On The Run (2020)

The third SpongeBob SquarePants feature film, and the first released since the death of SpongeBob's creator, Stephen Hillenburg, I am still trying to decide why I didn’t enjoy this as much as the two previous movies. Did I watch all three too close together, or is it a marked drop in quality when it comes to the silliness and the gags. I am leaning towards the latter, but people should know that the former may be a contributing factor.

Everything is going along as usual in Bikini Bottom, which means that Plankton is still scheming to steal a coveted recipe and cause trouble. He thinks that he is constantly being thwarted by the owner of the Krusty Krab, but he is shown the error of his ways soon enough. The person who most often thwarts Plankton is, you may have already guessed, SpongeBob. To get him out of the picture, Plankton comes up with a plan involving SpongeBob’s pet snail, Gary. This leads to a dangerous road trip to Atlantic City for SpongeBob and Patrick, where they hope to retrieve Gary. Unfortunately, Gary has already been claimed by King Poseidon.

Written and directed by Tim Hill, a pleasingly constant key figure throughout the SpongeBob show and movies, there’s still some fun to be had with this underwater adventure. Hill heads up a group of creative people who have strived to craft a new tale that was worthy of the feature runtime, but they haven’t managed to avoid a certain feeling of diminishing returns. Seeing our characters head along to Atlantic City just doesn’t feel interesting enough, and the animation makeover (which may have started on the show, I am still only a movie SpongeBobber at the moment) gives the whole thing a sheen that works against it. I cannot be the only one who appreciated the paradoxically beautiful ugliness of the classic SpongeBob look, surely.

Thankfully, the voice performers remain as good as ever. Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Clancy Brown, and Mr. Lawrence are all a lot of fun, Carolyn Lawrence gets to enjoy a bit more screentime for her character, Sandy, and newcomers Matt Berry (well, newcomer to his role of King Poseidon) and Keanu Reeves, onscreen in a live-action role that allows him to deliver sage advice and a full Keanu experience, are fantastic additions to the cast, as is Tiffany Haddish in the role of Tiffany Haddock.

I enjoyed this. There were times when I chuckled, and a gag-filled montage at the very end ensures that I was smiling as the end credits rolled. I just didn’t love it. Something is missing, a spark of anarchic lunacy that made the previous two movies so much fun, and I was ultimately disappointed. I wouldn’t rule out revisiting this one though, and a repeat viewing might well lead to me rating it slightly higher. It’s never going to rival the first two movies though.

6/10

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Ani-MAY-tion: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water (2015)

While the first SpongeBob SquarePants movie was both wonderful and hilarious, it was a pretty straightforward quest narrative. This sequel is also, at the very heart of it, a quest, but it’s a quest that takes some twists and turns, including a magical book that allows characters to literally write their own fate, and a little bit of time-travel. I didn’t expect it to be as good as the first film, which was released just over a decade before this one, but I was hoping to have some more fun.

The whole thing begins with a theft, and it’s a theft committed in live-action form by a pirate (played by Antonio Banderas). We then move to another theft, this time one committed by Plankton, once again aiming to get his hands on the magical Krabby Patty recipe. But things soon get weird, so weird that SpongeBob ends up helping Plankton escape, with the two of them working together to find the lost recipe before Bikini Bottom is irrevocably changed by the loss.

First thing’s first, this isn’t as enjoyable or hilarious as the first movie. That’s not that surprising, I guess, but it still does enough to keep you smiling throughout . Most of the best gags appear in the opening third, but the finale has the additional pleasure of seeing the characters made “real” and interacting with elements of the world around us. I realise that me saying that implies a weak middle act, but that’s not the case. It just isn’t on par with the sections that bookend it.

Everyone is back for the main voice roles. No SpongeBob SquarePants adventure would be the same without hearing from Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Rodger Bumpass, and Mr. Lawrence, as well as the other regulars. They all do the usual great work, and Banderas, as the main newcomer, and main non-animated character, is equally fun as Pirate Burger Beard.

While creator Stephen Hillenburg sits a bit further away from the main duties this time around, I’m sure he was keeping a close eye on everything. He wouldn’t have to worry too much about director Paul Tibbitt (or Mike Mitchell, responsible for the live-action sequences) though, or the lead writers, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. They all know what is needed, and they deliver.

While it’s not quite as good as the first feature film, this does well to avoid already feeling tired and stale. Whenever the gag rate dips slightly, there’s more than enough inventiveness and anarchy to make up for that. I had another very enjoyable visit to Bikini Bottom, and I am already looking forward to heading back there very soon.

8/10

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Ani-MAY-tion: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)

I cannot say that I am overly familiar with SpongeBob SquarePants, but I know enough about him to enjoy this movie. He lives in Bikini Bottom. He works at an underwater diner named the Krusty Krab. And he has a loyal friend named Patrick. I have somehow absorbed all of this information without ever having watched a full episode of the TV show, as far as I am aware. I have watched this movie before though, but I remembered nothing about it.

There are a number of enjoyable diversions here, but the core of the plot concerns SpongeBob and Patrick embarking on a long and dangerous journey to reclaim and return Neptune’s crown. Succeeding in this quest will save the life of their boss, Eugene Krabs, and foil the scheme of the nefarious Plankton, who also gets busy turning the residents of Bikini Bottom into mindless zombies (not the full-on horror type, just devoid of their own willpower and easily controlled by Plankton).

Bookended by scenes that show a rowdy gang of pirates hoping to enjoy the animated feature, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie is just about as much fun as you could expect it to be. It seems to keep the essence of the show and characters, increases the scale just enough to make it feel worth adapting into a movie, and delivers plenty of surreal hilarity in both rhe visuals and the dialogue.

Directed and co-written by SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg, with many others helping to knock the script into shape (and Mark Osborne credited for the live-action sequences), this feels like the kind of brilliant anarchy that you only get from someone who has negotiated their way to a place where they get to protect their vision with a final say on anything that will be delivered to the viewing public. Maybe that is exactly what happened, or maybe it is just a coincidence that Hillenburg had turned down numerous requests to turn his show into a movie before finally helming something that moved from the small screen to the big screen with such apparent ease.

The cast are mainly familiar to those who enjoy the show. Tom Kenny is SpongeBob, Bill Faggerbakke is Patrick, Rodger Bumpass is Squidward, Clancy Brown is Mr. Krab, and Mr. Lawrence is Plankton. All of them are superb, and they are joined by Jeffrey Tambor and Scarlett Johansson (playing Neptune and his daughter, respectively), Carolyn Lawrence and Jill Talley (both also reprising characters from the show), Alec Baldwin, and even the world’s most famous TV lifeguard, who pops up for a hilarious cameo that allows him to steal a couple of scenes.

I cannot think of anything here I would fault. While it may not make me rush off to watch every episode of the show, that is only because of me having only so many hours in each day. I will certainly be aiming to watch the other movies, at the very least, and I hope they come close to being as much fun as this one, which had me laughing pretty heartily from start to finish. I know that the silliness here isn’t for everyone, but I am certainly happy to be a goofy goober.

9/10

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