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The SpongeBob
SquarePants Movie
Release Date: November 19,
2004
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Director: Stephen Hillenburg
Screenwriter: Stephen Hillenburg, Derek Drymon, Tim Hill, Kent Osborne,
Aaron Springer, Paul Tibbitt
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Alec Baldwin, Jeffrey Tambor, Clancy
Brown, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Tom Kenny, Carolyn Lawrence, Douglas
Lawrence, Jill Talley, David Hasselhoff
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Family
MPAA Rating: PG (for some mild crude humor)
Official Website:
SpongeBobmovie.com
DVD/VHS:
DVD (Widescreen) |
DVD (Full Screen)
Plot Summary: There's trouble brewing in
Bikini Bottom! Someone has stolen King Neptune's crown, and it looks like Mr.
Krabs is the culprit! Though he's just been passed over for the promotion of his
dreams, SpongeBob stands by his boss and along with his best pal Patrick sets
out on a treacherous mission to Shell City to reclaim the crown and save Mr.
Krab's life.
Reviewed by Peter
Veugelaers © 2004
- Who said they don't make 'em like they used to?
The SpongeBob SquarePants
Movie is intended for children and adults.
The core audience at the screening I attended were young, but with a good range
of juvenility present. This animated-live action movie version is produced by
Nickelodeon, and is a refreshing way to spend 90 minutes of an afternoon.
To explain how adults might enjoy SpongeBob is
contrasting the difference between this movie’s development of its ideas and any
(usually teen) movie that asserts conspicuously that believing in yourself is
the best choice anyone can make this side of earth. SpongeBob holds back
from gushing its message – believing in yourself – and is more about integrity
than self realisation.
The main character is a child underwater sponge (voiced by
Tom Kenny) who wares square pants and who appears more like a likeable twit than
a hero, nevertheless journeys with his dim witted best friend Patrick Star (Bill
Fagerbakke) to save themselves from King Neptune’s wrath who believes the crab
owner of a restaurant, where SpongeBob works, stole his crown. The crown is
hiding at Shell City, five days drive away. The king (Jeffrey Tambor) has
consequently froze the prime suspect –– who supposedly left a note with the king
that he stole the crown. SpongeBob has a deadline to retrieve the crown or the
crab will be exterminated by king decree.
To a child SpongeBob’s trajectory is quite simple. But for
an adult this pleasingly swipes at materialism, corporatisation, and what it
means to wear trousers, which gets progressively insane with parodist scenes
involving mechanisations of mind control and ancient methods of enslavement (aka
The Ten Commandments), getting plastered on ice cream at the “nut bar”,
bar brawls, and Baywatch star David Hasselhoff pumping his chest. For
these kids, it’s a man’s world, and that is the central laugh. The two juvenile
crazy and zany cartoon characters (who both have a penchant for the “Goofy
Goober Rock Singer”) provide stimulus for most of the humour, which includes
inter-film references to familiar movie scenes with the likes of The
Terminator.
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