t's a big day in Bikini Bottom: SpongeBob (Kenny) finally gets his long-awaited promotion to manager of the second Krusty Krab franchise!
Or so he thinks. But as the absorbent yellow fellow prepares himself for the best day ever, Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) has other plans. He's got his eye on SpongeBob's irritable neighbor and co-worker, Squidward (Rodger Bumpass). SpongeBob can't be a manager because he's just a kid, Mr. Krabs says.
When the big news comes, SpongeBob is devastated. He slinks off to the Goofy Goober ice-cream parlor to drown his sorrows with his best friend, Patrick (Fagerbakke). The nefarious mite, Plankton (Mr. Lawrence), meanwhile, is cooking up a mysterious plan to steal Mr. Krabs' secret recipe for Krabby Patties. It involves King Neptune (Tambor) and the vain monarch's golden crown.
When the crown goes missing, Neptune blames Mr. Krabs. At the Krusty Krab, he threatens the avaricious crustacean with his flaming pitchfork. King Neptune is so mad he doesn't listen to the advice of his sensible daughter, Mindy (Johansson).
That's when a disheveled SpongeBob and Patrick show up to give Mr. Krabs a piece of their mind. Through a series of misunderstandings, SpongeBob volunteers to journey with Patrick to the dangerous Shell City to retrieve King Neptune's crown and save Mr. Krabs. Or else.
SpongeBob is convinced that if he can do this, it'll prove he's not just a kid. But what he doesn't know is that Plankton may be up to something even more sinister than making patties.
Bigger—and mostly better
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie takes off from Nickelodeon's hit animated series and comes from the fevered imagination of the show's creator, Hillenburg, a former marine scientist. The TV show has won a rabid audience among the preteen set for its wide-eyed innocence, bright look and zany humor. But a full third of its audience is supposedly made up of people old enough to swim without waterwings, including a sizable portion without children. They are drawn to the cartoon's sly wit and weirdly mesmerizing aesthetic, which mixes midcentury Polynesia with Ren and Stimpy grossness. (The film clearly knows its audience: In addition to big-name co-stars, the film has a soundtrack featuring songs by Avril Lavigne and hipster bands the Flaming Lips and Wilco.)
The TV series is made up of 10- to 15-minute shorts in which SpongeBob and his dimwit friend, Patrick, deal with simple dilemmas: saving enslaved jellyfish, avoiding swearing, trying not to wake a hibernating Sandy the squirrel.
Inflating the show to a nearly 80-minute movie runs the risk of drowning in too much of a good thing, and at times a grownup viewer may find himself squirming with impatience. But for the most part, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie offers up the show's signature pleasures: SpongeBob's imperturbable cheeriness, Patrick's impenetrable stupidity, Plankton's mystifying megalomania, etc. And the longer the film unspools, the weirder it gets, which is a good thing.
With one exception, the addition of high-profile guest stars doesn't add much to the show's regular charms. Tambor's King Neptune is so over the top that only squealing children are likely to find him amusing. Johansson is spunky and level-headed as Mindy the Mermaid, but not very funny. Baldwin's character, an apparent homage to a similar assassin in Raising Arizona, is just threatening enough to add a sense of peril.
But David Hasselhoff! In a part supposedly written specifically for him, Hasselhoff fearlessly lampoons his own image and allows himself to be the butt—and chest and back and lower leg—of elaborate jokes and action sequences that give a new meaning to the term "body of work." He's a whale of a good time.
