My Life Is Crumbling, so I Reviewed Every SpongeBob Movie
You already know SpongeBob SquarePants. A small little show on Nickelodeon that has since exploded into one of the most recognizable characters of all time. With its timeless setting, great art direction, and snappy sense of humor, you probably know how this story ends: it hasn’t. 25 years later and it’s still the network’s champion above everything else.
Regardless of your opinion on its domination over other shows on Nickelodeon, the sharp decline in quality after the third season, and sudden increase in spin-offs after creator Stephen Hillenburg’s passing, it’s not an icon — it’s the icon. Even if I myself am a patron to the church of Jimmy Neutron, I’m also a fully grown Gen-Z raised in the 2000s. I grew up with SpongeBob for quite a bit of time, falling off as I became older around Season 9-ish. I want to say either right before or around the second movie was getting advertised, funnily enough.
You read the title. Growing up I never watched the second movie — or anything beyond that, really. SpongeBob’s humor has changed drastically in several different directions as countless creatives and producers alike tried recapturing what made the first three seasons so special. But movies are usually a different beast with bigger budgets, more heads to bounce off of, and a grandiose premise to sell you that this is worth that extended runtime.
They’ve flickered in-and-out of my head for a while, but something in me just snapped and I thought to myself, “I GOTTA see those SpongeBob movies.” There are four currently out so far with three more on the way, so here’s a journey spanning three decades worth of movies in the span of five quick reviews. Any and all childhood bias is left at the door, so I hope you enjoy.
As a brief aside, here’s a quick summation of the main cast since they’ll all be referenced quite a bit. Feel free to skip to the reviews if you’re already familiar. SpongeBob is SpongeBob; yellow, rectangular, dork, sponge, and deeply devoted to his job as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab. Patrick is his best friend, a starfish who’s a bit dull but always tries to do what’s best for his buddies. Squidward is SpongeBob’s neighbor and coworker, with his most noteworthy traits being a grouch and an octopus despite the name. Sandy is another good friend of SpongeBob’s, being a squirrel from Texas who’s a scientist and martial artist. Mr. Krabs is SpongeBob’s boss, loving to be cheap and scam just about anyone. Plankton is a plankton (shocker) who runs the Chum Bucket, rival restaurant to the Krusty Krab, and is hell-bent on stealing their secret formula for Krabby Patties.
One last addendum, I 100% lost access to my streaming accounts after watching all of these movies (thanks, Netflix), so all movie screenshots are sourced from the SpongeBob Fandom website. Links provided for each image.
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
The name isn’t lying; this is the SpongeBob movie.
Hype waves of cartoon movies kickstarted by The Rugrats Movie in 1998 were still trucking along at the time, with Nickelodeon naturally pestering the crew of their current hit show to do the exact same. It took quite a bit of time to wear Hillenburg down, with concerns of dragging the same premise on for a full movie’s length naturally cropping up. After enough deliberation and bouts of inspiration the team finally agreed, but for Hillenburg, it was to be his last assignment before passing the reins off to Paul Tibbit to pursue newer projects.
There’s also the intense debate over whether the movie was supposed to be the finale to the show, is the canon ending, or wasn’t even seen as an ending at all and just another step forward. Even the Wikipedia page cites the movie as originally being a finale, but unless I’m missing something painfully obvious, I couldn’t find an actual quote for it. I don’t doubt this was to be Hillenburg (and many other writers/creatives) last big SpongeBob project, but Nickelodeon wouldn’t let a fresh cash cow die so soon.
Development aside, The SpongeBob Movie is a loose spoof of the Odyssey (yes, Homer’s) where Plankton has framed Mr. Krabs for stealing King Neptune’s crown and sold it off to the forbidden Shell City. Being the king of the seas and needing to show authority, it’s an instant execution for poor old Krabs until SpongeBob and Patrick intervene and volunteer to find it in a meager six days. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Plankton yoinks the Krabby Patty secret formula and uses it to kickstart total domination and mass slavery. Natural escalation, really. All the while, SpongeBob is feeling bummed after a major incident makes him question his own maturity.
The crux of the comedy comes from absolute idiots SpongeBob and Patrick going on a journey far too dangerous for them all while just barely managing to scrape by. The writing is on par with some of the highest rated episodes in the first three seasons, with every scene, character moment, and line building up towards something followed through later. There are also a healthy number of quiet moments sprinkled in so that the pacing doesn’t feel too overwhelming — with gorgeous scenery to boot.
If you’re familiar with the show, then it wastes no time getting you right into the story with fairly minimal character introductions. But at the same time, what dialogue they do have quickly gets you up to speed on their dynamics. Quick gags like Patrick supporting SpongeBob before realizing he’s naked (and changing under his rock in a split-second), or Mr. Krabs trying to change his prices by $100 when he sees King Neptune is coming go a long way. They’re not just silly little jokes, but also efficient setup before things really get going story-wise.
The recurring theme of maturity and growing up is also interesting, taking full advantage of SpongeBob’s silly demeanor and flipping it into a whole character arc. As a series it’s no stranger to poking fun at people who scoff at silly things (prime example: the ending of I Had An Accident). But actually translating it and having their antics serve as what gets them into danger and forces them to reflect works way better than it has any right to.
A decent criticism I’ve seen is that the movie is missing its third cog in the friend group: Sandy. And while I do understand being disappointed that she’s reduced to cameo status here, I also think a major point is that she would solve the movie way too quickly. In the show she balances out their antics, thus taking away the need for SpongeBob to learn that you can be silly and mature.
I do have a few minor issues, but nothing that ruins the movie. Mindy, King Neptune’s daughter, feels pretty underutilized despite the heavy marketing. She’s far from a bad character and does play a key role, but she also has around 10 minutes of screen time. Though at the same time, giving her additional scenes would break the pacing. A bit of a trap in both directions, but a minor gripe all the same in what’s otherwise a stellar movie adaptation.
To be frank, I’d love to prattle on about every joke, stunning sky view, the music, sharp dialogue, tight pacing, and some other sixth thing, but it’d be better if you watched (or rewatched) yourself. It’s a comedy accessible for kids, but still has plenty of appeal for adults. If you know SpongeBob, you’ll love it. If you’ve never seen an episode, then I think it’d still be a hit and easy to follow along. On the odd chance you hate SpongeBob and are still reading, well, I’d be confused but you may feel some validation reading the rest of my reviews. Regardless, if you haven’t already, give it a chance. It’s probably on some streaming service, and if nothing else, the DVD, Blu Ray, and rental are all highly available.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
The name isn’t lying; they are out of water for the last 23 minutes.
SpongeBob, like any franchise, goes through waves of popularity. The first three seasons were a surprise hit, and thanks to the team finally agreeing, a movie and future episodes solidified itself as Nickelodeon’s new juggernaut — one still going to this day! But especially for comedies, people get tired of the same thing. This was before Nick really tried capitalizing off of nostalgia, and the show had been airing for ~15 years now with many fans simply growing up. That’s right: the dark year of 2015.
During this time the show’s tone had changed drastically, leaning into more gross-out, mean-spirited, and “characters annoy people” premises. I don’t remember it being terrible, but a near-complete departure tonally. Naturally, SpongeBob being their idol, Nick wanted more movies but the team just didn’t have many ideas that they felt were strong enough to warrant going to theaters. So when faced with appealing to old or new fans, they went with something completely different from the rest of the franchise.
The easiest way to describe the plot would be to say it’s very loose. Movie 2 is constantly jumping from parodying Indiana Jones, war movies, Max Max, a buddy-time travel story, before ending with a spin on superhero flicks. Events are connected, but they jerk over to the next style instead of slowly drifting towards it. All while leaning into a style of comedy that drifts between surreal, “lol random,” and reference humor. Depending on your perspective, this doesn’t sound too great. And yeah. I wouldn’t exactly disagree.
Technically it does follow one continuous storyline, being that a pirate named Burger Beard found a magic book that allows him to rewrite the world. During his raid, Plankton is trying to steal the formula and it poofs when only him and SpongeBob are looking. When everyone returns and everyone wants Plankton flayed alive, SpongeBob joins forces with him to find the real culprit.
A fun premise! One that they don’t really take advantage of. Despite being the main hook, Sponge and Plank working together boils down to them going back and forth with, “We should work together,” “I don’t wanna,” “Well we’re gonna work together,” “I don’t wanna,” “This teamwork will be great!,” “Well I don’t wanna.” And then they just do it with no friction, only split later without much of a word.
I really wouldn’t mind a weak plot if the core focus was on the jokes, but with so much time wasted on banter that goes in circles, it just weakens the overall structure for me. And along those lines, puts that much more emphasis on the comedy to hold everything together. Maybe it’s just that my sense of humor isn’t on the same wavelength, but that also flatlined for me.
During the opening scene once you’re past Burger Beard stealing the book, it’s an extended sequence of Plankton trying to take the secret formula with a plane, tank, and giant robot. They pause in the middle of an action scene to say the punchline from a previous SpongeBob episode (without any setup), and then shortly after they let out a fart and stop to giggle at it. Right then and there, my brain went, “Uh oh.”
To be clear, I’m not against a good fart joke. I’d be lying if poopoo peepee humor didn’t still get me; I am not above my primal silly. It’s more of an indicator for what’s to come: stopping everything to tell a basic joke. There were some stand-outs, don’t get me wrong, but the vast majority boil down to yelling, referencing a popular piece of media, or repeating something that started a little funny before going downhill. There were also these talking CGI seagulls quipping at Burger Beard — I guess to have marketable characters for the kids? But that’s SpongeBob. He is the marketable character. Ah well, more of a strange choice than a horrible one.
The animation seems roughly on-point with the previous movie and show, though the art direction does feel a bit flat for some scenes. It looks just fine — good, even. And when they introduce different art styles I think they work for the most part and are some of the prettiest frames. But when it’s the standard 2D SpongeBob affair, it can range quite heavily.
This probably sounded very negative, so you may be surprised to hear that my general thoughts stop at, “It’s fine.” I wouldn’t change my overall view of the movie if it weren’t SpongeBob, but trying to live up to the first movie would have been a tall order regardless. On its own, Sponge Out of Water is a below-average family movie that’s perfectly fine; nothing outrageous or offensive but very little that sticks. People who grew up with this movie may look back in fondness, but I’d find it hard for an unbiased adult to say the same. Watch it. Or don’t.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
The name is lying. He barely ran.
Officially, the movie had a quiet development that started shortly after the second movie once they realized that the market was still craving some Sponge. Ideas were tossed around, directors and writers went in, and Paramount decided that it would be an entirely CGI adventure animated by Mikros Animation — the same people behind the shockingly gorgeous Captain Underpants and TMNT movies. The name changed from “It’s a Wonderful Sponge” to “Sponge on the Run,” sure, but that’s pretty much where development ends. A quaint movie about SpongeBob finding his pet snail, Gary.
Except a lot of stuff got leaked.
Three major plotlines got out across several stages in the third movie’s development, with the most obvious being the 3rd. Which, coincidentally, has the least amount of info. The only major thing known about it to my knowledge was that it’s called, “It’s a Wonderful Sponge.” That’s it (besides it morphing into the end result). Presumably it would be based off of the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life, but SpongeBob wasn’t exactly out of water for long in the second movie, either.
The first pitch involved Gary getting kidnapped and taken to Atlantis, ruled over by a live-action King Neptune, in order to mass clone him. I don’t hate it, but it’s easy to see why Paramount would have shot it down with feeling close to the first movie and using the Atlantis trope again. The original posts confirming this seem to have been taken down, but are corroborated by Paul Tibbitt, so read for yourself on the Cancelled Movies Fandom page if you’re curious.
Now the second pitch, however, is one hell of a shift. Gary would take the stage as a Superman parody, being a prince sent off in a rocket by his snail parents while an evil race of alien cats took over their planet. Years later, the cats eventually find Gary on Earth and yoink him in front of SpongeBob, hoping to free their leader Galcatacus and turn the planet into their personal litter box. It would involve space travel, reuniting with Bubbles the talking god-like dolphin from the 2nd movie (he was surprisingly unimportant), and a whole side plot that’s basically a different movie.
Not to derail too much, but I won’t have another chance to talk about this. It would star Nick Cage as himself, failing to get a role in a movie as president. The next step? Running for president himself and winning, having a whole election process, owning a pet tiger, and dealing with the cat menace himself. Concept art from a range of artists further flesh out what they were aiming for, so again, do read the Fandom page if you’re curious since it was the most organized page with sources. There are plenty of smaller details you’ll have to read on their own, but I can’t imagine this premise working and having anything but an agonizing pace. It felt like they saw the success of a surreal story for the second movie and really cranked it up.
In short, they were throwing a lot of stuff at the wall to see what stuck — whether it be for the studio itself or to appease Paramount. The end result was less A Wonderful Life like you may expect, but very close to the first pitch combined with the original movie. Plankton realizes that SpongeBob is the key to his failures and sends Gary off to King Poseidon in the lost city of Atlantic City. SpongeBob and Patrick team up for a buddy road trip to find Gary and bring him back, with the assistance of a talking tumbleweed named Sage played by Keanu Reeves’ floating head.
When I mentioned that it was like the first movie, I meant it. There are obvious differences, but the core premise of Sponge and Pat on the road together, going to a dangerous forbidden location while Plankton uses it as a means to steal the formula…yeah. But a premise is only the set dressing, because how the creatives take advantage of it is what really matters. Which is a shame considering they don’t do much.
There are three distinct setpieces where the movie takes place, and each one almost feels like they don’t really connect (if not two scenes that are back-to-back). The writing makes characters jump between these head-empty happy-go-lucky selves to acting pessimistic and argumentative at the flip of a switch. Technically build-up existed because a few fights happened before, but when all of them felt random and then the one near the climax is equally out of nowhere, I’m just not sure if they expect me to feel much.
I’m almost willing to give SpongeBob a pass because his pet has been kidnapped. Like sure man, be upset. But Patrick acts actively antagonistic to where he’s especially out of character. Any attempts at genuine or heartfelt character moments feel off or unearned.
There’s also the light elephant in the room that it’s a backdoor ad for the SpongeBob spin-off that’s since died, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years. I haven’t seen it, I can’t speak for it, and I’m sure it’s perfectly alright for kids. Near the end, all of the main cast come out and give a dramatic speech about when they met SpongeBob and changed their lives, and while I don’t hate it like the internet seems to, I’d be lying if I said it worked or was great.
With the weird tone, off character moments, repeat premise, and backdoor pilot, the whole thing reeks of corporate meddling to me. That, combined with there not really being a solid vision beyond, “SpongeBob saves Gary.” And even then, it’s almost easy to forget because they just waste so much time. Which hey, if they were just aiming for kids, I’d be whatever. I’m still feeling whatever, just imagine that times three. But considering the comedy and writing, it feels like they were aiming for all audiences as well?
It’s a bit hard to describe, but the characters talk in a way where it feels like they’re trying to reach above just kids. Characters say stuff like crappy and damn, they make jokes about getting hungover and having gambling problems, but the other issue is that they either don’t land or were done better, earlier. Nothing’s terrible, but it feels fine at best. And since there’s no other place to put this, shout-out to this scene where they wake up on land and you see a whole music video of Snoop Dogg that has zero bearing on the plot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXAA9xmY0_Q
If I had to, I’d probably rank this one pretty close to Sponge Out of Water. Both are perfectly passable movies if you’re a kid, but despite aiming for all ages I don’t think most adults would find it more than cute. Its comedy does work better than the previous movie, but the inconsistent tone and repeated elements all add up to something most people probably won’t go out of their way for. Or should.
The art direction is killer, though. Zero complaints; gorgeous all the way through. There were some light concerns with how the series would translate to full CGI, but they were thankfully unfounded. I would take a bullet for Mikros Animation.
Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie
Finally, a title telling the truth again. Sandy Cheeks is in this movie. This is also probably the worst one. Sorry to the 200 or so Letterboxd users who gave it 5 stars.
Originally set to be three Paramount+ exclusives, this has since turned into a set of Netflix-exclusive SpongeBob spin-off movies for Sandy, Plankton, and presumably Patrick in that order. Why the change? They never said, but if you want my guess, it’s that Paramount+ is still bleeding money and Viacom is testing the waters. Which considering all they have is uh, Knuckles, I can see why. And I’m his strongest soldier.
Maybe I haven’t read through the credits enough, but this was handled by a team outside of the usual SpongeBob crew — an oddball among the other movies. Animation was outsourced to Canadian companies Pipeline Studios and Sinking Ship Entertainment. The jokes really write themselves, huh. Ads and posters looked strikingly similar to the marketing from Sponge on the Run, but make no mistake, Mikros Animation had no involvement. Though if you watched it, the downgrade is instantly apparent.
At its best, it looks like a TV movie for a B-grade franchise. At worst, the lighting would make you think it was the leaked version from midway through development (allegedly). I can appreciate what it was going for and try to view the movie on its own, but inevitably, my brain goes, “Wow, these used to look good.”
Another change you’ll realize is that the movie is very much made for children. Not families, but going all-in on a younger demographic. Which again, not inherently bad. I would argue that SpongeBob as a show had been there for a while, and this fully embraced that as a nonsense kids cartoon parents throw on. But is it good nonsense? Uhhhh.
The general premise is that a team of marine biologists Sandy works with have scooped up the entirety of Bikini Bottom, save for Sandy and SpongeBob. Team up, go to the surface, roll the title. This is really the only story where Plankton isn’t involved, and in that regard it’s a breath of fresh air to see what their original villain, Sue Nahmee (yes), can do to stand out.
Another major shift: Sandy is actually relevant. Too competent for the first movie and a supporting character at best in the other two, she never really had a chance to shine or stand out beyond acting as the science-y one. A real shame this is where she got the spotlight.
Sandy herself is decently written and harkens back to earlier seasons with a balance of her scientific, martial arts-loving, and “straight man” personality. The complements end there, though, because whenever a problem shows up, she just has the right tool immediately and solves the issue. Any action or conflict loses its weight before it can even register, which makes all of the problems feel super disjointed.
Not to sound melodramatic, but I really do wonder what happened to SpongeBob for this one (unless this is just his personality now). Danger doesn’t really process to him; he just giggles and laughs even when someone is strangling him until another character saves the day. He says one-liners constantly, many times in quick succession. He actively endangers other characters, then him doing that is never brought up again. It feels like they gave him the mind of a very detrimental child, and has by far the biggest character shift out of all the movies.
One idea that almost makes it is that Sandy’s family gets introduced, being a typical mom, dad, brother, grandma, and two younger siblings. They try to introduce this drama of choice where Sandy thinks about how she left them behind to pursue science and live in Bikini Bottom, which is tropey but not a bad direction to take. Except they drop it just as fast as it’s shown off, and resolved in the end by having her family just. Visit Bikini Bottom. They could have done that the whole time? Sure, whatever, man.
Sue Nahmee is also…a villain. She has two henchmen, a talking computer that gets a total of 1 scene and is dropped, and this CGI monster fish. Most importantly, they’re all live-action. Which involves acting. Acting that isn’t too swell, but is kinda funny in a, “They let this air?” kind of way. They had to have only done one take with the most newbie filming crew possible — I pray.
I don’t go in expecting Breaking Bad direction in my kids shows, but I don’t think there’s a single line where characters aren’t talking with this haunted stare straight into the camera, awkwardly saying a one-liner, or looking like they deeply regret signing on. I’ve seen some bad direction in kids shows, and most of the time I laugh it off. I still laughed at points, but there can only be so many bad moments before it sinks in that I’m just watching this really, really below-average kids movie because they said it’s SpongeBob.
It’s also a musical. And I don’t hate musicals, they have their silly spot in the world. But the thing is that I kept forgetting it even was a musical. It opens with a song, it closes with the same one (except extended), Sandy sings in the middle, and Squidward breaks into song right before the big confrontation (only to get shut down). Not even the villain gets one. Villains need their cool catchy evil song!
You may be thinking, “Author, you’re really ripping into this one. You even said earlier that this was aimed at little kids — who gives a crap?” My world isn’t ending because the Sandy movie was bad, but it’s just baffling how SpongeBob, the series that axed so many other cartoons over the years for its channel dominance, is just slopping stuff out for their ace franchise. Maybe kids who love SpongeBob will like it, but I think even kid-me would ask to turn it off.
Even worse, and granted this information does seem to be lightly disputed, the budget for it is insane. I found one person in a comment section say that it was $17 million, but I couldn’t find an actual source for that. The closest thing was executive producer Marc Cecelli mentioning budget limitations, though not elaborating. But TMDB, the only place claiming to have the budget, states an insane $100 million. Which if true, is just crazy. It would have the highest budget out of any movie on here, and over 3x the first film.
Let’s not beat around the bush with my summary, this ain’t great. I still don’t think it’s anything dramatic like it killing my childhood or ruining the “pristine” SpongeBob brand, but it’s stinky. Even worse than stinky, it’s boring and goes nowhere. If you’re a parent and your kid loves SpongeBob, maybe they’ll tolerate it. Maybe.
Plankton: The Movie
This is an interesting case, as technically, Plankton: The Movie isn’t even out yet. Even more intriguing, this is indeed a movie starring Plankton. But some production company on the assembly line messed up, because I couldn’t stop seeing clips or links to (now-deleted) full rips of the movie. For obvious moral reasons, I won’t be talking about the movie in-detail like the others nor show any screenshots; purely my opinion. It’ll come out when it’s ready, now confirmed for March 7th, 2025. This also goes for legal reasons, because if there’s one thing I fear more than death, it’s law infringement.
Just like the Sandy movie, this is a musical comedy starring a prominent side character as they go on a journey. Plankton’s there, Plankton-adjacent characters are there, and of course, Sponge Boy me Bob. From what I can gather it has a similar team to the Sandy movie as well — being produced by Netflix, same models and assets, but most interestingly, Mr. Laurence took helm of the screenplay and wrote for the movie. If you weren’t aware, he’s not just the person who pushed for Plankton to be more than a one-off villain, but their voice actor as well (on top of being a prominent writer since season 1). And it shows.
Plankton and another lead managed to avoid the strange character changes that ran amok in the previous Netflix movie. It actually got a few laughs out of me, which should be the norm for these movies but here we are. It also embraced being a musical more with the songs not only being used to tell the story, but there being more than three or four of them. They’re fine; still underutilized in my opinion, but a step up. SpongeBob himself is still not the greatest and feels more like a liability along for the ride than an actual character.
The movie as a whole is just…fine. A vast improvement over Saving Bikini Bottom, but it’s like I can almost see which parts Laurence wrote and where the previous team or Paramount intervened (as much of an oversimplification as that is). As a hook, I think it has the most unique premise out of any SpongeBob movie. But as a whole, it leaves me with a similar feeling to Sponge on the Run where I can see where they really could have gone the extra mile.
In the end, it’s a perfectly okay kids movie. I don’t know how much appeal this will have to families or general adults — especially those who aren’t very familiar with SpongeBob. It does take advantage of characters the most since the first movie, but never pushes any part of itself far enough for me.
Conclusion
I don’t know what I was expecting.
Maybe this is a harsh statement, but I think it’s accepted that SpongeBob had its shift from being a family cartoon to a show for kids sometime after season 3. I know seasons 4 and 5 have their fans, and I’ve seen some people swear by the newer ones. It wasn’t like the show dropped off a cliff; Hillenburg leaving was a sign, sure, but the gradual leave of countless creative heads is what morphed SpongeBob over time (show and character).
When interest starts waning, a movie and big marketing budget are there to make people go, “Oh yeah, SpongeBob still exists,” and maybe show it to their kids or something. It’s interesting that SpongeBob has a different personality in every single one of these movies — save for the Netflix ones, somehow — each one reflective of their era.
The original movie more-or-less has the same personalities found in the show, just in a slightly serious tone to match the stakes. Sponge out of Water is surreal with SpongeBob meandering the plot forward until they come across the solution by accident, making any stakes or storytelling feel superficial. Sponge on the Run is a bit more cynical and tries to juggle that with surreal comedy — with mixed results. Saving Bikini Bottom tries to have stakes, but SpongeBob feels like the worst of his writing where he’s oblivious and spouts as many one-liners as possible. Plankton: The Movie attempts fixing this, but still has the same core writers with a noticeable reliance on references.
So why bother? SpongeBob’s a kids show, right? I’m way out of the target audience; these are meant to be slapped on in the background while parents do something else. The Netflix movies in particular feel like they were made for people in the single-digit age range. Truthfully? I just wanted to see if they were any fun.
Time and time again I saw posts about Sponge out of Water being just as good as the first movie, Sponge on the Run murdering people’s firstborn, Saving Bikini Bottom desecrating their grandmother’s grave, and whatever other junk online reactionaries say. I didn’t trust any of them, of course. But with SpongeBob still being an ongoing brand thriving off of nostalgia now, I was curious.
You watch something as a kid and think, “Eh, maybe I should give that a shot,” years later, and most of the time it’s the most 5/10 whatever book/movie/game ever. Nostalgia can play a role and you’ll see people saying VeggieTales: Larry Boy and the Bad Apple is an underrated masterpiece, when in reality, it was a cute thing that shaped their childhood. Perhaps this is me with the first movie, but truly taking any and all biases aside, I strongly believe it’s a movie anyone can enjoy and appreciate (assuming they’re not the type to consider animation a genre).
It was almost flabbergasting, like yeah, it was even better than I could recognize as a child. Forget the meme faces and nostalgia baiting, it’s a good movie that works for all ages because the writing, characters, and art are all there. And with it actually being so good, it makes the others seem that much paler by comparison.
People act like Movie 2 should be crowned and Movie 3 should be shot out back, but they’re both around the same level of, “Fine.” Serviceable kids movies that a parent wouldn’t hate with a cute lesson of, “Teamwork is good,” or, “Respect your friends,” slapped on to say it has educational value. The same can apply to Plankton, which does seem aimed to younger audiences but still does a decent job. The Sandy movie may actually be that bad, though.
I don’t have an end moral. Watch the first movie and support Mikros Animation.
