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The obligatory movie based on a popular sponge
The Nickolodeon Television show created
by Stepher Hillenburg (director) that has gained enormous popularity
over recent years has finally made its way to the big screen. Unfortunately,
following in the long career of television programming being ported
to feature film format, this film lacks any of the charm that the original
series had.
The themes are common enough. Many a children's
film have been built on the idea of believing in one's self, and this
one is no different. The rather naive sea sponge and his buddy Patrick
the starfish set out on a madcap adventure and eventually learn this
for themselves. Unfortunately, these are virtually the only characters
from the television series that make much more that a small cameo, aside
from the villain, an evil Plankton named Plankton (naturally). This
wouldnít be such a bad thing if not for such poor development
of all of the film's new characters, such a King Neptune and his mermaid
daughter.
Despite the flat characters that are introduced, the mood
and humor is identical to that of the series: completely ridiculous
with a touch of the bizarre. This oddball sense of humor was carried
over almost directly from the series, probably due to many of the regular
writers (Derek Drymon, Tim Hill, Aaron Springer, and others) being employed
on this production. What makes this movie worth watching is the absolute
silliness contains so much of, but even the zany sense of humor starts
to wear on the nerves after an hour and a half. These characters, and
this style of storytelling, are meant to be ingested in small doses.
The format fits perfectly into a thirty minute time slot, but doesn't
quite hold up as a feature film.
In the end, Spongebob accepts that he is a child and not
a grown up, and is happy with this. I hope that the producers now accept
that Spongebob is a television series, and not a feature film, as the
format simply doesn't work
Silly, but perhaps a little too silly for the amount
of time it absorbs.
Film Critic: - Tom
Cameron
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