The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water Review
PG: Comical Action Violence and Rude Humor
Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies
1 hr and 94 Minutes
Voice Cast: Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Bill Fagerbakke, Roger Bumpass, Carolyn Lawrence, Mr. Lawrence and Antonio Banderas as Burger Beard
Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during my adolescence. Outdated language might be seen in these old posts. Since then, my thoughts and values have grown. This review is being presented as they were originally written, grammatical errors and typos and all. Because to do otherwise would be that same as claiming these flaws has never existed.
BACKSTORY: Saturday January 31st, my best friend Gil and I try to be early as possible to attend the premiere of The Spongebob Movie: Sponge out of Water in 3D. Though we were ignored to be bought to the fan pen (personally pissed me off), we got our own theater to watch the film in 3D. Oh yeah and while being confused walking into the wrong theater we were given awesome 3D spongebob glasses and Slash walked by us, but we were like "it's too early for this shit." I'm going to call this movie out for what it is. An experiment. Sponge out of Water is an experimental film for Paramount's Animation Studio to showcase how detailed they can be in their CG can be. After their release of Rango, they needed an experimental film to show how well they can stand on their own. For what they showed as an experiment, I'm very impressed. But as a Spongebob movie? I'm nothing more than disappointed.
STORYLINE: Burger-Beard is a pirate in search of the final page of a magical book that makes any evil plan he writes in it come true, which happens to be the Krabby Patty secret formula. When his search is completed and the formula is missing, the entire city of Bikini Bottom is in danger. Spongebob, Plankton, and the gang need to go on a quest that takes them to the surface. In order to get back the recipe and save their city, they must retrieve the book and transform themselves into superheroes to fight Burger-Beard and his super villain pirate crew.
REVIEW: For anybody thinking the whole movie is the 3D Spongebob movie where most of it is 3D live action and he is out of water, YOU'RE WERE HOODWINKED! Most of the Spongebob movie is in 2D and has a very dark theme going for it for the first part. UNFORTUNATELY the movie is completely unbalanced where all three acts felt as they were inspired from several other sources. The 1st act being Lord of the Flies/Apocalypto, the second being Dr. Who (in the most dumbest way possible), and the last segment being Avengers. The thing about the movie that ultimately fails is the spitballing of its humor. Most of the film is funny with visual gags, and bad puns galore, but then there are moments and jokes that are so random, that even the youngest of children would be confused on what's going on. For sponge stakes, the film ends with an epic rap battle. Whereas the 1st film released a decade ago had a great moral, the one in here feels so forced and muttered it's not even memorable.The live action scenes of "exposition" with Banderas and several seagulls that surround him are annoying, but when the seagulls disappearand the action battle sequence comes in that's when things really start become fun. Sadly it's nothing more than 15 minutes of the movie.
3D: For most of the movie being in 2D, the 3D used for it's 1st hour is really effective. You see all the line drawing of each character, but you really see the 2D characters being surrounded in a 3D background. But when the CG comes in, 3D is used more to give the action scenes a little more splendor.
LAST STATEMENT: As inspired and experimental the film tries to be, Sponge Out of Water is an unbalanced film that doesn't spark much pizazz as the 1st one did.
Rating: 2.5/5| 57%
Super Scene: Plankton enters a Alfred Hitchcock sequence in Spongebob's brain
