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 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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Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever (2014)

Yes. It begins. It's that most wonderful time of the year. And I thought I'd start off my festive viewings with THIS film.

In case you hadn't heard already, or figured it out from the title, Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever is the first movie to be developed from an internet meme. Which means we may be able to look forward to a second Willy Wonka movie in which he sarcastically asks to hear your opinion on subjects, there's a whole film to be made from Sad Keanu, and perhaps even a horror movie entitled I Don't Always Know What You Did Last Summer, But Even When I Don't . . . . I Do.

Anyway, the slim plot here sees a little girl (Megan Charpentier) making a Christmas wish that allows her to hear the voices of the pets in the mall pet shop that she frequents. Actually, she asked for some friends but this seems to be a strange way of making that happen. One of the pets in the shop is the famous grumpy cat, and the two girls end up working together when a pair of robbers break in to steal a dog that's worth a million dollars.

The plot, however, is incidental to the main focus of the movie, which happens to be Lifetime movies, how to sell things to consumers, and the ridulousness of its own existence. Co-written by Tim Hill and Jeff Morris, with the former also working as director, the film takes almost every opportunity to poke fun at itself, and also the viewers who have tuned in to watch such a ridiculous idea. Grumpy Cat comments on everything unfolding onscreen with the right amount of sarcasm and disdain, which makes this a whole lot funnier than it otherwise could have been.

Aubrey Plaza provides the voice of the famous cat, and it's hard to think of better casting. Famed for playing characters with eye-rolling, sullen attitude, Plaza delivers a most appropriate vocal performance. And she even gets to appear in person very, very briefly. Charpentier does a decent job, essentially playing second fiddle to the cat, and it's good that the script also makes her consider the ridiculousness of things during the earlier scenes. This isn't a small girl who simply believes that Christmas is a time for magic and miracles. She wonders what the hell is happening and then gets caught up in the midst of a dog heist. Daniel Roebuck is a security guard, and Evan Todd and Isaac Haig have fun as the incompetent robbers.

There are moments that don't work. Scenes featuring the mother of Charpentier's character, and her possible blooming relationship with a young man working as a mall elf, seem to do nothing more than take viewers away from the main entertainment, while a scene in which the young girl feels genuinely at her lowest and worst simply feels out of place, considering the tone of the majority of the movie.

Just as easy to hate as it is to enjoy, the movie tries to use that judgment to wring extra laughs from the material. And it kinda works. I'm not going to say that this is a movie I'll rush to rewatch, but it's certainly one of the better Christmas TV movies that I've seen in recent years. I laughed at a number of the lines, fans of Grumpy will be pleased to see her face featured so much, and the scene involving a fast car and some mall doors is a dopey highlight.

Yes, I'd even watch a sequel.

6/10

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