Review of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) by Liam C — 08 Apr 2015

This film made me so happy, knowing that the original team were coming back just filled me with the utmost glee and after watching this, I wish they never left. They intended the last film, which came out 10 years prior to this one, to be the finale and that would have been an excellent end but f course companies can't let anything end. This film was totally surreal, goofy, and fun and it even pushed the boundaries at some points like the old seasons did and it was fantastic to see, you could not get rid of the smile on my face no matter how hard you tried. It was great to see that this film was not afraid to do what it wanted to do and didn't feel pressured to dumb it down to make it nice and simple for everyone. It did what it wanted to and gave us a real experience. The characters returned to what they used to be and were all fun, as opposed to being the caricatures they turned into. The story just went so off the wall so quickly to the point where some have said, it was like an acid trip at points, it has some '2001'-like imagery at points and has the old style of the show with the really detailed pictures. The script was also excellent and very funny and had so many nice little gags in there for fans, from the iconic, 'my leg' to the 'FINLAND!' which had many people scratching their heads in the theatre. Some parts that might seem like filler to some do come back into play later in the film and it all connects well; even if it does have some time travel elements which always cause me to find faults with something but I'm not going to think about it with this. There was a part where Spongebob put his hand in the safe and the secret formula was out of shot so and I thought I had an idea of what was going to happen but it plays out much differently.

I love the huge use of animation as opposed to using the 'gimmick' of the CGI, which, even then, still does look really nice. There are a few songs during the film as well which are very good, I thought the Teamwork song would be like the F U N song but hey, it's still great, hell there's even a rap battle in this thing. It doesn't just copy the format of the last film but is totally unique, it doesn't have a big rock song at the end like most will expect/want. What else is great is their super powers, I thought they'd be the same as was in that Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy episode but I'm getting really nerdy with this now. Antonio Benderas is awesome and totally throws himself in this film and doesn't just phone it in or look like he's uninterested. The only thing that I really could find fault with is that Spongebob acts like he has never seen a human before and I know continuity isn't something that should really be worried about but even if we're going by the movie world, he met David Hasslehoff in the last one! I'll admit, I saw that this was being made and I was already worried about it and it didn't help knowing that it was coming out so early in the year as well but knowing who came back to make it, that put me at so much ease. It's as if the original team came back just to say, 'you aren't going to screw this up', this film was a hell of a load of fun and almost makes up for all the wrongdoings the show has committed. I loved it.