The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run: a recycled episode, family jokes

One of the charms of Sponge Bob Square Pants is that after a certain point, you know exactly what you’re getting. Like any good children’s cartoon, it’s based on bright colors and broad character traits, but this particular franchise also has enough pop culture references and sassy sneak jokes to keep adults from getting bored. The SpongeBob movie: Sponge On the Run it is the third film in the series – which spans 13 TV seasons since 1999, and is even having a new spin-off at Paramount Plus – and is a fun, albeit normal, entry. For a property that has seen some genuinely moving and hilarious highs, however, it probably should have been more.

In its opening scenes, SpongeBob’s third cinematic output (and his first fully animated CG) seems to promise a story about the young cook’s relationship with his pet snail Gary, a distinctly feline creature who speaks of “meowing” disarmaers. . The film lingers, for a moment, on the fact that Gary feels abandoned and lonely when his owner starts working, but it’s an idea that the story doesn’t really return to, even after Gary has disappeared, and SpongeBob must find one. way to locate it and bring it home.

The usual supporting characters are involved in various points, from the mean neighbor of SpongeBob’s octopus, Squidward, to his miserly crustacean boss Mr. Siriguejo and his friend Sandy Cheeks – a hardworking squirrel and karate lover in a space suit. But the plot largely comes down to yet another evil scheme from the diminutive Plankton, Siriguejo’s business rival, who hopes to steal the secret formula from the coveted Krabby Patty, the submarine hamburger that SpongeBob prepares with care and joy. Plankton’s plan involves getting SpongeBob out of the way by kidnapping Gary and sending him to the Lost City of Atlantic City (no explanation needed) and, as always, SpongeBob is accompanied on his journey by his faithful but stupid best friend, Patrick Star.

Like the two previous films, Sponge On the Run sends SpongeBob on a mission outside his comfort zone and away from his hometown, Bikini Bottom. Once again, the scope of a film gives you the chance for a more challenging and grandiose adventure than seen on TV – think of the relationship between classic Star Trek movies and programs. But, although the film recycles the configuration of a popular Sponge Bob TV episode (“Have You Seen This Snail?” From 2005, which had a massive audience of almost 8 million), the film limits the heart and sincerity that defined not only the first seasons of the program, but the 2004 film infinitely retractable The SpongeBob SquarePants movie, and the explosion of creative optimism that was the recent Broadway musical.

However, the crazy concepts and celebrity guest appearances he centers on are bizarre enough (and metatextual enough) to be fun on their own. For example, Keanu Reeves joins the cast as an old sage named Sage, who is also made of sage sticks – essentially, Reeves’ living action head composed within a shiny weed. (“Sage out!” He exclaims, leaving the board after giving spiritual advice.) There is also a cowboy-pirate zombie musical number starring Danny Trejo and Snoop Dogg, which sounds like a random non sequitur, because it’s absolutely is one.

Much of this film seems to take place in a dream of live action about the Wild West, for no other reason than to play SpongeBob and Patrick in strange scenarios en route to their destination. On the one hand, this decree “throw everything on the wall without a rhyme or reason” shouldn’t matter much, in a story of a talking bath sponge driving to an underwater casino to retrieve its pet clam. On the other hand, this narrative approach, coupled with the decision to use only live action and CGI instead of the program’s usual 2D animation, makes the film look like a hallucination, rather than a tale of a cheerful and naive young character forced into a world that does not share his optimism.

The old episodes of the series only used live action for the surface world, and it wasn’t until the 2015 film Sponge out of water that the characters were animated with CG (and only when they ventured on land). But here, confidence in CG does the characters and their world a disservice. Giving these underwater creatures a realistic texture, as opposed to hand-drawn anthropomorphized details, plunges the film into mysterious territory. It’s ugly to look at. The colors are noticeably darker than the cartoon, and SpongeBob’s “pores” even have a green hue, which makes them look moldy and infected. This is especially strange for a series that sometimes used crisp, “realistic” animated panels – often dubbed “disgusting” – to create moments of disgust and discomfort, given its shocking contrast to the normally pleasant hand-drawn elements.

But, despite its aesthetic oddities, the third film is still an improvement over its hand-drawn / hybrid CG predecessor. It is significantly funnier and livelier, largely due to the admittedly vibrant dynamics between SpongeBob and Patrick. (Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke belong to the proverbial Voice Acting Hall of Fame.) This time, they also joined a brand new character, Otto, the scrap robot (Awkwafina), whose dry and monotonous responses make the pair’s turbulent energy I feel even more childish. Otto instantly fits into the canon of the series, now two decades old, as it was built by Sandy, adopted by Plankton and his computer wife Karen, and eventually becomes the driver of SpongeBob and Patrick on their journey to the City Lost Atlantic City.

Also joining the cast is Matt Berry (FX’s What we do in the shadows) like the delightfully presumptuous King Poseidon, the Greek deity who rules the Lost City and uses snail slime in his skin rejuvenation routine. (That’s why Gary ends up in his possession.) Poseidon’s presence contributes to a particularly funny expansion of SpongeBob’s canon, for those who pay attention to these things. Its Roman equivalent, King Neptune, is a separate character in the first film, and The Lost City of Atlantic City is also totally distinct from The Lost City of Atlantis, which appears in a 2007 episode and is ruled by David Lord Highness with a voice. Bowie.

While Sponge On the Run plays fast and loose with the continuity of the series, it also looks like the series has finally fallen prey to concerns about the shared universe. After illuminating the possibility of conflict between Patrick and SpongeBob – a theme that has worked well in the past, although it has been avoided here – the film moves towards an ending in which the relationships and present dynamics of the ensemble do not really matter, although they are all forced into difficult scenarios together. The dynamic between SpongeBob and Gary matters even less. Instead of SpongeBob having to prove himself a worthy person, or a worthy owner and friend of Gary, the movie shifts gears and offers extensive flashbacks where all the other characters tell childhood incidents to prove SpongeBob’s worth to them . All of these flashbacks take place at a summer camp called Camp Coral, which is also the premise for the prequel series of young viewers Kamp Koral: SpongeBob Minors, arriving next to the film at Paramount Plus.

The film spells the camp’s name differently, and some other details also differ. (Lula Molusco, for example, is an advisor on the program, but a camping companion in the film.) But the scenario is basically the same. The show was announced a few weeks later Sponge On the Run went into production, and the final act of the film can’t help but feel like a backdoor pilot, rather than a resolution to its own story.

What’s more, the film features some final beats that look especially ugly for a child’s property – the main one being a speech about unconditional acceptance being quickly followed by a joke that embarrasses one of the new characters. It is a surprisingly low effort comedy in a franchise that, despite being silly from the beginning, has always tended towards a cheerful and positive attitude and love for its characters. Sponge On the Run it is also the first time that SpongeBob is referred to as a savant – the cast has even talked about the character’s appeal to autistic children – but the jab is not exactly in the best spirit.

This low effort MO for some of his comedies also extends to musical sequences, which play like YouTube parodies that someone invented overnight. Some of them are fun, but are a far cry from the franchise’s once sincere approach even to satirical musical numbers: The first Twisted Sister film “I’m A Goofy Goober” was the culmination of the narrative, and the show The cover of “Sweet Victory ”By David Glen Eisley even made it to the Superbowl.

Still, if what you’re looking for in a SpongeBob story is high-energy jokes and antics, there is absolutely no shortage of them. The film accumulates a lot in its mere 91 minutes – cutting any narrative connective tissue certainly helps you to move quickly. And for everything that doesn’t work well, there is something on the side that works. Although this film may seem like a Simpsons– weird case of a series that fails to recover the lost greatness, the result is still fun every minute if you can keep the expectations of the past out of sight and out of mind. Or … you can just watch the first movie again.

The SpongeBob movie: Sponge On the Run is now broadcasting Paramount Plus, and is available for premium rental via Amazon, Voodooand other digital services.