The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015)

SpongeBob’s Return Strictly for Fans

Here’s the deal: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is a movie that was not made for me. It’s overly frenetic It contains a series of nonsensical images that build one upon the other with all the ferocity and purpose of a mounting migraine headache. It’s loopy and loony in ways I do not typically care for (and I’m usually one who cheerleads for ‘loopy’ and/or ‘loony’ on a regular basis). It’s a random excursion into madness and mayhem, the whole enterprise so disassociated from one piece to the next it makes The Muppet Movie or even your average Mel Brooks absurdist comedy look downright subdued when stood up next to it.

PHOTO: Paramount Pictures

With that being so, much like the last time the long running and popular Nickelodeon Television cartoon character hit the big screen back in 2004 with The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, I seriously doubt fans – whether they be 6, 16 or 60 – will agree with me. This is a film made decidedly for them and more than likely them alone, everything shaped and molded in the same fashion as the relatively iconic cartoon series that inspired it all. From the humor to the plot to the characterizations, all of it fits a distinctive mold familiar to them and alien to everyone else, so on that front the sequel has to be considered something of a success.

The plot, what there is of one, revolves around a despicable pirate named Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas) who manages to come up with a way to steal the fabled secret recipe for the Krabby Patty leaving the animated citizens of Bikini Bottom in a state of full-blown Armageddon. In a desperate bid to get things back to normal, adversaries SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced by Tom Kenny) and duplicitous wannabe restauranteur Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) are forced to team together on a journey through space and time in hopes of recovering it. In the end they are joined by starfish Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), squid Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), squirrel Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence) and crustacean Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) in their pursuit, the gang finding themselves stranded in world unlike any they’ve ever known before using mysterious superpowers none never guessed they could have possessed before this epic adventure began.

Personally, I don’t get it. The humor, the way things work, the corny over-the-top silliness of it all, it’s just too much for me. At the same time, there is an underlying intelligence to director Paul Tibbitt’s, creator Stephen Hillenburg’s and writers Glenn Berger and Jonathan Aibel’s opus that’s somewhat impressive. There actually is a point to all the mayhem, finding that out, at least for the younger viewers, maybe even worth the price of a matinee ticket. I should also say visually, at least during the film’s somewhat astonishing third act when the hand-drawn animated characters are teleported into the human realm, things are impressive indeed, the combination of incredible puppet work and CG animation an eye-popping wonder.

Not that this makes the movie something for me, not even slightly. I can admit to being impressed with some aspects of the writing, I’m more than happy to extoll the virtues of its technical facets, I’m even happy to say I did laugh here and there at some of the gags proudly thrust front and center upon the screen. But as far as 93 minute excursions into animated underwater wonderlands are concerned I don’t want a single solitary part of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water; my head just couldn’t take the trauma of a second viewing.

Film Rating: 2 (out of 4)