SpongeBob and Patrick on the road to manhood and an ice cream bender.

This review is part of captaind's The Good Movies EpiGuide 2 write-off (http://www.epinions.com/content_5245804676).

"Under the sea
Under the sea
There'll be no accusations
Just friendly crustaceans
Under the sea!"
- Homer Simpson, "Homer Bad Man" (1994)

The perks of not writing about movies professionally is that I can harness my cynicism towards not seeing movies I anticipate will stink. And yet, I find my defenses starting to weaken a lot more over the past couple years whenver I step outside my comfort zone. The one genre I really dug as a kid, the horror film, rarely thrills me with each new release. The comedy has gotten a lot more LCD, and are taking many talented actors with them (I still am not convinced of why Wild Hogs deserved to gross more than The Simpsons Movie). Even science fiction movies, like the recent Eagle Eye, feel like yesterday's paranoia wrapped up in a Michael Bay-friendly aesthetic of unsubtle aggravation. The political arena is enough to make one feel jaded even at the ripe age of 24, but movies are the thing I always vested interest in.

And I always enjoy it when something I think I would simply shrug off comes around to make me smile in the end. So here's to an animated kiddie flick which manages to temper my cynicism and give me a goofy, innocent thrill without insulting my intelligence: THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE.

I didn't discover SpongeBob in college, but I no doubt heard of him. The Nickelodeon-aired creation was the product of CalArts animation graduate Stephen Hillenburg, who shares this distinct honor with Brad Bird and John Lasseter. Hillenburg, however, parlayed his experience in the field of marine biology into making a sunny series about an overly enthusiastic and insufferable but pure-hearted sea sponge who looks like, in the words of voice artist Tom Kenny, "a loofa mixed with a rock mixed with a potato." With his two buck teeth fixed in a wide grin and mischievous eyes, SpongeBob SquarePants loves nothing than to work as fry cook at the Krusty Krab fast food diner, go jellyfishing with imbecilic sea star friend Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) and occasionally cause grievance to other resident of the undersea kingdom of Bikini Bottom.

The live action sequence that opens the movie has the show's theme song ("Who lives in pineapple under the sea?/Absorbent and yellow and porous is he…") sung in celebration by a band of pirates who've just found treasure. Their booty: tickets to see the SpongeBob movie back on land. Call it "Mutiny on the Balcony."

SpongeBob, who has consecutively won 374 employee-of-the-month awards, is convinced he will be manager of the new Krusty Krab opening nearby, known as the Krusty Krab 2. The bubble-blowing, bright-eyed and overly giddy fry cook is mortified to find that his curmudgeonly coworker and neighbor, Squidward Tentacles (Rodger Bumpass), has been given the promotion instead. As SpongeBob drowns his sorrows at the Nut Bar of the Goofy Goober ice cream parlor, series villain Sheldon J. Plankton (Mr. Doug Lawrence) has initiated Plan Z in his attempt to steal the secret recipe for the Krabby Patty and thus revive his dead-in-the-water Chum Bucket.
 
Plankton achieves this by stealing the crown of balding King Neptune (Jeffrey Tambor) and pinning it on the money-grubbing miser who manages the Krusty Krab, Mr. Eugene H. Krabs (Clancy Brown). SpongeBob puts aside his hangover-fueled animosity towards Mr. Krabs in an attempt to prove himself more than "just a kid" by going into the forbidden Shell City and retrieving the crown. Helped out by Patrick and Neptune's mermaid daughter, Mindy (Scarlett Johansson), SpongeBob goes on a road trip in a customized burger mobile (The Patty Wagon), braving all manner of real men of the sea and dangerous creatures such as frogfish and cyclops. Another of these threats is bike-riding baddie Dennis (Alec Baldwin), a Leonard Smalls-lookalike hired by Plankton to take out SpongeBob and Patrick. So far, so good with the Coen Brothers shout-outs.

The SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons are 11-minute morsels of knowing but youthful comic madness which has appealed to demographics far and wide. THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE expands itself by about seven times the normal episode and dares its naïve protagonists to face danger on their quest to prove their responsibility and, to some extent, their manhood. It was certainly more than Pee-Wee Herman did with his big adventure, although SpongeBob himself is like an animated version of Paul Reuben's manchild persona but definitely more incorruptible and, depending on how you see him, incorrigible.
 
The temptation with most animated films is that they go too broad in trying to appeal to kids who lean towards the adventurous, imaginative exuberance of the main characters and adults who can take pride in non sequiturs and subtly offbeat humor. Let's just refer to it as "Shrek's Curse," when too much winking and not enough craft go into the story and often end up making these movies feel either dated or miscalculated. THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE, for the most part, walks this fine line admirably and with charm to spare. Granted there is juvenile humor in regards to visible underwear and the presence of David Hasselhoff in a live action cameo to wake up the hip older crowd, but these elements are not exactly condescending and provide a nice touch to the adventure and even the characters (Patrick in particular has blushing crush on Mindy).
 
The adventures of SpongeBob and Patrick take center stage and often result in some adorable isolated sequences. Mindy comes the rescue at one point by using her "mermaid magic" to dupe our heroes into believing they are men, with a marching fanfare musical number to guide them through a treacherous trench full of menacing monsters. "Now That We're Men," the song that is featured, is sadly one of a few choice morsels of musical mayhem Hillenburg and team weave into their picture, the other SpongeBob's rendition of a Twisted Sister standard replete with a David Lee Roth soundbite tossed in for good measure and some visual images straight out of Spinal Tap's video for "Hell Hole." Phew!
 
At 90 minutes, the animation and the narrative hang on a shaggy sense of makeshift creativity, which will mean that some characters like Texan-accented kung fu expert Sandy Squirrel, beleaguered driving instructor Mrs. Puff and SpongeBob's pet snail Gary ("meow") figure less into the plot than one would hope. The movie's simple 2-D animation, built on primary colors that surely look more polished but just as crude (note the scene where the camera pans out when Krabs affixes the manager's tag to Squidward's uniform). And the movie's attempt to open the dimensions to encompass the land are limited to a digression with particular shades of Finding Nemo in its tension.
 
But I was not as cynical with this movie as I predicted. Once again, maybe it's the passage of time and a whole lot of more depressing fare aimed at children and the parents who splurge for tickets. I didn't see THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE in theatres, but I saw Speed Racer this year, and only one of these outrageous vivid and relentless movies left me with a multi-factored migraine by the end credits. Everything about THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE, even the big names helping out in the voice talent category as well as the presence of bands like The Flaming Lips and Motorhead(!) on the soundtrack, seem like means to an effervescent end. Preserving the show's wacky spirit but broadening its dimensions with ambition, the movie's only four years old but has me anxious to see what they will do next for the sequel, which is more overdue than any delayed cheeseburger.
 
Paramount's DVD of THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE is available either in anamorphic widescreen (at 1.85:1) or full screen, but chances are the transfers will look similar despite which option you feel more comfortable with. And judging by the widescreen version I possess, you can't go wrong any way you choose. The animation just looks downright splendid, as gorgeous as probably any real ocean would without any significant pollutants. There is detail in the design of the characters and their dwellings that come out clean and without any blooming or running. The scenes on land have just as much sharpness and first rate color reproduction. Any transfer flaws escaped my eye, such as the beauty of this solid image.
 
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is spatial and submersing, using the channels to provide a solid undersea ambiance and often allowing for a few nice directional effects and effective imaging of sounds during the more active stops on their adventure. The presence of King Neptune affords for some low-end response whilst the stereo separation affords the music a roomy aural atmosphere. The voices of all the actors sounded crystal clear and well-balanced with existing elements, and the overall feeling with this surround mix is one of warmth and delight. There are also 5.1 mixes in Spanish and French, plus English subtitles and a separate Dolby 2.0 Stereo Surround track. The extras, however, also include French and Spanish subtitles unlike the film.
 
Extras on this DVD are rather paltry but of interest to old and young. "The Absorbing Tale Behind THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE" (18:14) gathers Hillenburg and all of the primary voice talent, including Tambor, Johansson and Baldwin, to talk about their characters, often using big words to which the comments are paused to provide a convenient definition ("rapacious" and "avaricious," but also "dolt," which may not be in most kids' vernacular). Behind-the-scenes footage inside the recording studio as well as for some of the live action scenes are provided, particularly in the case of the 13-foot Hasselhoff replica used in macrophotography to more efficiently film water scenes with the animated characters.
 
"The Case of the Sponge ‘Bob'" (14:50) is a short film centered around an extended undersea tour narrated by Hillenburg and ocean explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau. It's more of a strictly educational extra during which we take a look at the real-life reefs and species of particular water creatures which proved the inspiration for the characters in the SpongeBob cartoons. Cousteau does provide a lot of background information and the undersea photography is also rather astounding to view, so this is also worth the watch.

The 20-minute "Animatics" block provides hilariously simple hand-drawn storyboards for about nine sequences, one of which ("SpongeBob and Patrick Meet Sandy on the Surface") was deleted and reworked for the motion picture. As Hillenburg states at the outset, the storyboards were essentially the format for the script rather than the development of an actual screenplay. Instead of the main cast, the artists speak the dialogue for these sequences, which often includes some alternate takes.

"Saving the Surf" is a quickie introduction to the conservational Surf Rider Foundation, who provide a couple pointers towards helping to preserve oceans and beaches. The DVD-ROM portion of the disc includes a THQ game demo for the videogame based on the movie. Finally, a teaser trailer which makes use of clips from a couple of submarine movies (one of which was also released by Paramount and stars Alec Baldwin) is included as are previews for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete Second Season, which also play before the warning screens and the main menu.

Movie: 4/5.
Video: 4.5/5.
Audio: 4/5.
Extras: 2.5/5.
Final: 3.5/5, rounded to four for display.

THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE, released by Paramount Pictures, is rated PG for some mild crude humor. The run time is 87 minutes and the release date for this movie was November 19, 2004.