SpongeBob SquarePants Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)November 30th, 2004
THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2004 David N. Butterworth
no stars (out of ****)
Not since "Tom and Jerry: The Movie" have I so desperately wanted to flee a theater playing a film with the words "The" and "Movie" in the title (or, for that matter, showing a big screen version of a popular small screen cartoon). I'm not exactly sure what kept me in my seat this time--maybe it was inertia or the discarded gum on my seat or the hopes and expectations of my accompanying children, high hopes and expectations I too had shared--but all I can remember is sitting there with my mouth agape like some washed-up flounder, stultified into submission by what was unfolding on the screen in front of me.
Where was the SpongeBob SquarePants I (and 57.8 million Nickelodeon fans) knew and loved? What happened to his dim-witted starfish pal Patrick? And what became of their cranky neighbor Squidward? Where too was all the irreverence, the sweet-natured smarts--in short the funny bits? And where the heck was the plot!?
These characters, thrust upon the silver screen for the first time in their relatively short five-year history, had had all the life, all the pleasure, squeezed out of them. They'd been dumbed down, stretched out into mind-numbing blandness, an 11-minute show painfully expanded to a 90-minute feature that dilutes our underwater heroes beyond recognition. Yes, I'm a SpongeBob fan.
"Bubblestand"? Excellent episode. "The Fry Cook Games"? Silly as all get out. "Squid's Day Off"? A classic. But "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" is a slap in the tentacles to any "SpongeBob SquarePants" fans the oceans over.
The film opens with a lame live-action nod to "Pirates of the Caribbean" (crusty buccaneers posing the musical question "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?") before submerging to the animated environs of Bikini Bottom. In plot thread #1, SpongeBob eagerly anticipates an expected promotion to Manager of the new Krusty Krab 2 restaurant (no guessing who gets the job). In plot thread #2, Plankton unleashes Plan Z to steal Mr. Krab's Krabby Patty recipe and take over the world. And in plot thread #3, SpongeBob and Patrick travel to Shell City, a forbidding, desolate place from which no marine life has ever returned, to retrieve King Neptune's stolen crown.
Somehow the SIX you heard me correctly that's SIX screenwriters (including series creator and co-director Stephen Hillenburg, who should be ashamed of himself) barnacle these three "ideas" together, tossing in a couple of superfluous cameos in the form of vocal contributions by Scarlett Johansson as King Neptune's daughter Mindy and Alex Baldwin as Dennis, a lone biker of the apocalypse type, plus the real life David Hasselhoff for an idiotic finale.
Is there a single chuckle to be had in the entire film? I couldn't muster one. The audience (mostly the under-five set with their beleaguered parents) laughed out loud when SpongeBob lost his pants and guffawed equally heartily when Patrick lost his pants but otherwise they were eerily quiet, with potty and concession breaks clearly out-favoring the nautical nonsense on-screen.
By the time the house lights came up I myself felt stunned, physically drained, a little bit sick even. The film had zapped my energy, my will to live--I went home and flubbed, like a fish, into bed.
For much like fish, "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" truly stinks.
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David N. Butterworth
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