Spongebobbled

Anyone under the age of twelve or who has small children in their life would no doubt know about Spongebob Squarepants. Even though I don’t fall into those categories, I have the brain of a 10 year old, and I’m as goofy as a small child so I qualify. The TV series already has a legion of ready-made fans both kids and teenage slackers alike, who’ve been watching it for the past five years, but even for the uninitiated, the movie is surprisingly delightful.

Even though he’s only a kid, Spongebob Squarepants (Tom Kenny) has big ambitions to make something of himself in the big, wide ocean. In the sleepy, under-the-sea inlet of Bikini Bottom he works tirelessly manning the grill at the thriving fast-food chain Krusty Krab II, the new outlet being opened by the Owner Eugene H. Krabs (Clancy Brown). One day the over-eager, enthusiastic Spongebob dreams of becoming the manager of the store but in the meantime he’s expecting a well earned promotion. To his dismay, the promotion instead goes to Squidward Tentacles (Rodger Bumpass), who has no rapport with customers, but is older and more experienced. Mr. Krabs tells Spongebob that a little kid can’t handle grown up responsibilities.

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in Bikini Bottom when the tiny, green one-eyed villain of the piece, Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) who runs a rival, failed fast-food chain Chum Bucket, schemes to steal King Neptune’s (Jeffrey Tambor) crown and frames Mr. Krabs for the crime, so he can acquire the secret recipe for Mr. Krabs famous Krabby Patties. So now it is up to Spongebob and his dumb friend Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), with a little nudging from the Kings Daughter to prove themselves and journey into the forbidden, metropolis of Shell City to find the crown, save Mr. Krabs and get the promotion.

Along the way, they encounter a number of scary sea creatures, live-action pirates, a hit man named Dennis (voiced by Alec Baldwin), break out into a rousing rendition of a Beach Boys-esque tune “The Best Day Ever” and wind up getting wasted on ice cream at Goofy Goober’s nightclub, leading to dreadful ice cream hangovers.

Spongebob is perhaps one of the wackiest and wildest additions to popular culture, reminiscent of the kind of nonsensical silliness of earlier cartoons. Absorbent and porous, Spongebob is always clean, freshly washed and scrubbed. When he takes a shower, he eats a bar of soap then plugs a shower hose into his head and fills his body up with water, so soap bubbles exude from every pore. Now THAT’S silly!

Although not as funny as TV series, the translation to feature film has kept to the general formula that has worked so well on the small screen. All the usual hand-drawn characters are there, along with a few celebrity additions, including a bizarre cameo from a flesh-and-blood David Hasselhoff, who clearly had nothing better to do with his time than give the hitchhiking Spongebob and Patrick a lift back to Bikini Bottom by bouncing them off his flexed Pectoral Muscles.

The DVD edition I watched has a number of special features to entertain the hardest of fans. Including a behind the scenes, Interviews, Trailers and two featurettes.

Although it might seem it’s just for children, there is plenty to amuse grown ups, and although a few hardcore fans might be disappointed with it, it’s still quite funny. Unlike the utterly charm less Big Budget computer animated movies “Shark Tale” and “Robots”, Spongebob Squarepants with its low-tech, brightly colored animation ant its irreverent, exuberant hero, may have none of the bells and whistles, but it has a great childish sense of fun. Recommended for Kids like me.