The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

Crazy, hallucinogenic, dimension-breaking normality.

The Spongebob Squarepants phenomenon passed me by. The TV series debuted in the UK as I was growing out of child-orientated animation, and I never saw the show until last year while at a friend’s house. In one episode, Spongebob catches a literal ear-worm and drives Squidward insane by singing the same song again and again. It was a brilliant piece of self-referentiality because, to the uninitiated, Spongebob Squarepants is just a series of random events sandwiched between the annoyingly catchy theme tune.

Sponge Out of Water bookends with threats of said theme tune (don’t worry, they go through with it). Welcome to Spongebob Squarepants, where a song is a bigger box office draw than Zorro.

Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas) finds a mystical book on a desert island. He reads its contents to a group of seagulls, recounting the tale of Plankton (voiced by Mr Lawrence) and his devilish plot to steal the secret formula from the Krusty Krab. Plankton and Spongebob (Tom Kenny) fight over the pirate ship bottle containing the recipe when it suddenly vanishes into thin air. Spongebob, knowing of Plankton’s innocence, T-Ms up with him to discover where the location of the bottle. Meanwhile, the town of Bikini Bottom, suffering a severe Krabby Patty shortage, becomes a post-apocalyptic war zone in which everyone wears leather and throws around speedboats.

So far, so normal. But then there’s the hallucinogenic sugar-coated sequence inside Spongebob’s brain, a hick squirrel (Carolyn Lawrence) who loses her mind, a dimension-bending photo-booth time machine, a potato dogfight, and a sentient dolphin named Bubbles (Matt Berry). Which, thinking about it, is also quite normal for this world.

Fans of the show will love Sponge Out of Water as it never aspires to be bigger than a standard episode for the most part. Its goofy, juvenile, extremely self-aware humour carries the film and contains jokes to please kids (farting) and adults (The Shining references, also farting). Sponge Out of Water only collapses somewhat when the sponge gets out of the water. The heavily-trailed CGI rendition of our heroes makes up the final act, and considering the possible scenarios presented, the story disappointingly resorts to an Avengers-style widespread destruction of a large place.

Non-fans should appreciate the classic Nickelodeon wackiness as seen in Ren and Stimpy, CatDog, and Rocko’s Modern Life. While it doesn’t contain the heart we expect from modern day animation, the chances of them leaving the cinema humming the song are guaranteed. Although, to them, the lyrics will likely sound more like:

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? (Spongebob Squarepants!)
And who swallowed a fuckload of LSD? (Spongebob Squarepants!)