The Unseen Movie Review

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie

Spongebob Squarepants is a phenomenon, a hero (of sorts) for many children, a cult figure for many adults, and the most popular children’s TV show in the United States. Apparently. When asked for an explanation, this was the response from one fan: “its great and they go jellyfishing and blow bubbles underwater and they have a friend called Sandy and she's a squirrel who lives in a bubble and like a spacesuit and its all good and YAY!” Make of that what you will…

By all accounts, this is about as exciting for modern children, and a fair few adults, as Transformers: The Movie was to those of twenty years ago, or the first Beatles film, A Hard Day’s Night, was twenty years before that. But for those that remember them, the 1980s antics of man-child comedian Pee-wee Herman, especially in the film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, are probably the closest direct ancestor of both the main character and this movie.

Spongebob is, well… a sponge. And he wears trousers (“pants” to our American cousins) which are, it must be admitted, somewhat square – well, rectangular really, but who’s going to quibble? He lives in a pineapple house with his best friend, Patrick the starfish, and his pet snail, Gary, in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom, where he works as a chef at a fast food joint. An incurable optimist, his prime aim in the television series seems to be to make friends with his grumpy, clarinet-playing next door neighbour, Squidward the squid, while thwarting the plans of the evil (but tiny) Plankton, the owner of a rival restaurant.

Why is it so popular? Well, as those descriptions probably make clear, it’s pretty damn silly. Silliness and a childish delight in stupidity are at the very heart of the show. Spongebog is like a squidgy yellow cross between Mr Bean and Shaggy from Scooby Doo, with the added bonus of occasional sparks of humour of the likes of that other cult cartoon Ren and Stimpy. Chuck in some silly voices and a range of utterly bizarre characters, and you have one of those very weird things which people are either going to love or hate. It seems that a sizable number of people – of all ages – love it.

Thankfully for his fans, Spongebob’s first big-screen outing deviates little from the TV version. Unlike so many cinematic versions of cartoons, there has been no attempt to “improve” the animation through computer graphics or the introduction of live-action (well, there is some live-action, notably featuring a cameo from Baywatch living joke David Hasselhoff, playing himself, but it’s so insanely self-mocking that it works perfectly). This is effectively just a much longer regular episode of the show.

As such the kids will love it, though it may stretch the patience of some of the stupid sponge’s adult admirers. An idea which works well in short doses can swiftly lose its appeal when it drags on too long, and there is always that danger here. To the film’s credit, it just about keeps at a bearable length, and the gags are fast and mad enough to keep everyone largely amused.

Though probably not one for first timers to the weird and wacky world under the sea, this movie does at least demonstrate that there is still a market for films with a less technologically advanced look, as long as they are entertaining enough. The art of hand-drawn animation is not yet dead.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM