Spongebob Squarepants

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (Directors: Sherm Cohen, Stephen Hillenburg, Mark Osborne)

Cohen and Hillenburg are "Spongebob" TV producers. Cohen worked on "Hey Arnold!" as well, and Hillenburg worked on "Rocko's Modern Life." Mark Osborne did the live-action sequences in here and he did the Weird Al "Jurassic Park" video.

Here is the third animated feature to hit in 14 days, only this time it's not some spectacular animation on display. "Spongebob" has a built-in audience from the hit Nickelodeon show, and is looking for some Holiday dollars, and all I can say is, "Thank God this isn't Rugrats or The Wild Thornberrys or some combination." Nickelodeon and Paramount have tried to adapt these TV shows before, with no resounding success, although I imagine they make a profit. This may be their biggest franchise to sell.

This is by all standards a silly movie, and at times this movie got me to laugh. It's got, in some ways, a Muppets spirit. Spongebob (voice of Tom Kenny) works at a fast food place run by Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown). King Neptune's (Jeffrey Tambor) crown has been stolen by a rival fast food joint run by Plankton (Mr.Lawrence), who frames Mr. Krabs and gets frozen in ice by Neptune. Spongebob must find Neptune's crown in a far away place with the help of his starfish friend Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke). They must, of course, navigate many obstacles in a humorous way, and they get a little help from Neptune's daughter Mindy (Scarlett Johansson).

It depends on what you find funny. I thought the expressions of the main characters were what got me to laugh most of the time. The lines are usually just to keep the movie in a silly mood, and will appeal to younger kids. David Hasselhoff makes his third appearance in a movie this year making fun of himself (Eurotrip and Dodgeball were the others) in a way that I guess would appeal to adults. There are a very few adult-themed jokes in here, but honestly, they seem glued in to the movie so that parents will have something to look at while their kids enjoy the whole damn thing. In the trailer, there is that sequence involving Spongebob "saving" a customer from eating his hamburger that has no cheese on it, mimicking countless action pictures involving bomb threats. It works a lot better in a trailer than it does in the movie itself, especially since you have the Hal Douglas voiceover accompanying it.

For me, the best Nickelodeon adaptation ever...but what a pale picture this is compared to the painstakingly made Polar Express and The Incredibles.