Hip to be SquarePants
It the bottom of the ocean, inside a giant pineapple, lives a yellow, oblong sponge who likes to blow bubbles, eats more ice cream than is good for him, and works as a fry cook. The “Krabby Patty” sandwiches he makes are so popular that a one-eyed plankton who runs a failed restaurant across the way regularly comes up with evil schemes to rule the world by stealing the recipe.
If you’ve been watching Nickelodeon the past couple of years, none of this is news, and you probably don’t need to hear any reviewer’s opinion of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. But those whose hackles are instantly raised at the mere mention of Nickelodeon need to take a chill pill. SpongeBob is no mere Ren & Stimpy gross-out or one-joke Rugrats. You’re as likely to find SpongeBob merchandise at Hot Topic as at Target; though the intended audience is children, many teens and adults are fans, including the members of Metallica, who actually appeared on a SpongeBob T-shirt earlier this year. (Motörhead and Ween are among the rockers who appear on the movie soundtrack.)
The megalomaniacal Plankton (Doug Lawrence), whose Chum Bucket restaurant has never had a single customer, steals the crown of King Neptune (Jeffrey Tambor) and places the blame on SpongeBob’s boss, Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown). (The one thing left unexplained in the movie is why a crab would serve something called a Krabby Patty to other sea creatures.) Neptune, incensed that he no longer has anything with which to cover his bald spot, turns Krabs into an ice statue and gives SpongeBob six days to locate the stolen crown and bring it back. With Krabs paralyzed and SpongeBob and his rock-brained sidekick, Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke), out of the picture, Plankton is free to steal the Krabby Patty recipe, turn the Chum Bucket into a popular eatery and hand out free bucket helmets that actually have the power to brainwash the wearer.
Unlike many other features made from TV cartoons, there’s no noticeable computer enhancement here. There is a rousing live-action intro, in which a motley band of pirates sings the TV theme song, then rush into a movie theater to watch the adventures of SpongeBob (voiced, as always, by Tom Kenny). There are also live-action elements in the climax — yes, by now you all know that David Hasselhoff is in the movie, but wait until you see exactly how he makes his impact on the plot — it’s his greatest performance ever.
One of SpongeBob‘s major strengths, and the central theme of the movie, is the pure joy the cartoon takes in childishness, a message that will resonate more with kids in the audience than with the girlfriends of older males — the ability to be spontaneous, to find total bliss in an ice cream sundae, and to love without shame goofy cartoons.
Of course, if you’re watching the flick, you’ve already taken that lesson to heart.
