The Spongebob Squarepants movie

Reviewer Philippa Hawker
January 6, 2005
Let's hear it for SpongeBob's big screen debut - from Scarlett Johansson as the voice of King Neptune's daughter, for one.

Photo: Supplied

(G) General release


He lives in a pineapple under the sea. His best friend is a starfish. He works at a fast-food restaurant that would probably give Morgan Spurlock a heart attack, proudly producing his speciality, Krabby Patties. He can't drive.

SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenny) is a kitchen sponge and star of a Nickelodeon TV animated series devised by Steve Hillenburg. The show is defiantly 2D, with occasional live inserts and outbursts of expressionist weirdness. Its central character is yellow, has two teeth and goggle eyes and dresses with as much chic as a 1963 Northern Territory parliamentarian at the height of summer: walk shorts, shirt and tie, long socks.

He is a worker, not a shirker, a cockeyed optimist who doesn't realise that his next-door neighbour detests him, and doesn't seem to mind routine or repetition - or, for that matter, nasty surprises. He takes everything in his stride.

The show might be aimed at primary-school children, but older kids (and parents) often appreciate it: there's something refreshing in its mix of surrealism and silliness, and its naive and cheery hero.

For the sponge's big-screen debut, Hillenburg has come up with a plot that works at feature length, in which his nefarious nemesis, Plankton (Mr Lawrence), proprietor of the rival fast-food establishment, the Chump Bucket, again schemes to steal the Krabby Patty recipe, but this time it involves major theft and the framing of SpongeBob's boss, Mr Krabs.

The only way Mr Krabs (Clancy Brown) can be saved is a journey of retrieval, undertaken by SpongeBob and his goofy, starfish buddy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke).

There are a couple of characters devised for the big screen, with voices to add a frisson of celebrity: Jeffrey Tambor (The Larry Sanders Show, Arrested Development) as King Neptune, whose crown Plankton steals; Scarlett Johansson as his daughter; Alec Baldwin as an evil hitman; and beach veteran David Hasselhoff in a live-action intervention. But the much-loved TV characters are at the centre of the movie.

And while there is something a little familiar about the use of a journey narrative, and the hint of an uplifting message at the end of the film, the breezy insouciance, gleeful absurdity and wacky innocence of the series remains.