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The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Movie Review

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is a 2004 animated family comedy film directed by Stephen Hillenburg. It’s a passable diversion.

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“Too bad SpongeBob isn’t here

to enjoy SpongeBob not being here“

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Trouble starts brewing in Bikini Bottom when someone steals King Neptune’s crown and the blame falls on Mr. Krabs. Despite this, SpongeBob stands by his employer and sets out to find the treasure. This is the first ever SpongeBob movie that was released after the third season and before the fourth one. Thus, it marks a clear turning point in the series in terms of quality.

While many would say that it was the last great moment for the show, I have to disagree. It was the start of more mediocre quality that would continue to plague this property for many years afterward. The problem here is that gone is most of the show’s sophisticated humor, except in a couple of small moments here and there.

The film became this overly childish storyline that is bound to satisfy kids, but not that many adults when discounting of course the die-hard fans of the series. The entire storyline where SpongeBob wants to become more mature is overly silly and one-note, though it did lead to strong characterization for our protagonist who’s mostly memorable here.

Others fare much worse for the most part. I did like Mr. Krabs as he was hilarious in certain moments with his greed of course. But Squidward was unfortunately entirely underused. Whenever you have a movie that features more of Patrick and less of Squidward, you are set to lose me as I undoubtedly prefer Squid. Plankton was a lot of fun, though, and having to realize that he has a forgotten plan Z was hilarious. King Neptune also has an unusually big, solid role.

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The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie’s animation is fine. It looks more polished and expensive and some of the horror scenes in the trench were my favorites. I wanted more of those adventure parts. The humor is lacking as is the dialogue, but the live-action segments were ultimately very entertaining with the David Hasselhoff cameo being the craziest and campiest scene in the entire movie. It really worked and I wish more of this franchise had such offbeat, wild scenes.

The first SpongeBob movie was a mixed bag. This was the turning point for the franchise as the series became so much worse from this moment onward. While the protagonist has an okay arc, other characters were mostly forgettable here. The animation is strong and the live-action segments were wildly entertaining in their campiness, but most of the movie wasn’t funny or memorable enough.

My Rating – 3