Spongebob Squarepants is a show which has been on television since 1999. The bizarre stories about a sponge who is working in a burger restaurant and his weird friends still manages to entertain both young and old. After his first full-length feature, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, this second movie has been made, which the trailers made out to be some sort of superhero movie. With The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water being available on DVD and Blu Ray it’s a good moment to see if the movie manages to make that come true.
If you know the series than Spongebob, Patrick, Mr. Krabs, Octo, Plankton and Sandy really don’t need any introduction. The story this time is about a book which makes it possible to rewrite the Spongebob story. When this book is taken by pirate Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas) he changes the story in order for him to get his hands on the formula for the famous Mr.Krabs burgers. The impact on Bikini Bottom is huge and the small town changes into an post apocalyptic place. Because of that Spongebob decides to works together with Plankton in order to get the recipe back and together the two end up in various strange, but funny, situations.
If after seeing the trailer you have the expectation that this film is completely set in the “real” world (also looking at its title) and in which the characters consist of CGI, than chances are that you’ll be really disappointed. The biggest part of the film still consists of traditional animation in the style of the series (something which oddly isn’t shown in any of the promotional shots). It is only during the last half hour that the promise the trailer shows becomes reality. It is the most entertaining piece of the film.
I’ve always enjoyed Spongebob, even though I never really watched the show. Before the characters leave the water for the CGI part the movie feels simply like a long episode without it ever getting really spectacular. Once they are on land it feels like more imagination is on display, which eventually results in an exciting chase in which the superpowers of the various characters are fully used, with funny results. When compared to the previous Spongebob movie I didn’t like this one as much, but still it’s one worth checking out if you enjoy this type of humour.
