It took a full 45 minutes for SpongeBob to leave the water. I know because I checked. This had to happen eventually, right? I mean, they weren’t going to cheat on the titular premise — The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water — were they? Those of us familiar with the 2D cartoon were holding out for 3D animation, and were thus both indulged and cheated. Yes, SpongeBob gets out of the water, gains a dimension and super powers to boot. However, his entire land-lubber period wasn’t long enough kill a goldfish.
For the SpongeBob impaired, SpongeBob Squarepants (voice of Tom Kenny) is a name and an apt description. Well … sort of apt. Wikipedia says sponges have no body symmetry; why, this sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, no? This ever-optimistic porifera has a deadend job as a fry cook. Like so many in his profession, it is neither a teen nor a summer job, so it’s possible he’s hoping for a regulatory minimum wage increase, but I missed that episode. Mostly, he’s overly content to serve up tasty Krabby Patties to an ever-fattening undersea population. There’s a joke about a doctor treating a patient for the effects of an all fast-food diet, while the patient, doctor and nurse are all chowin’ down on Krabby Patties. It ain’t “Who’s On First?” but there is a certain amount of clever here.
There is much music in the SpongeBob universe, but these guys don’t sing like Ariel & co.; maybe that’s in a different part of the ocean.
When the burger recipe gets stolen by either the conniving protozoa Plankton or pirate Antonio Banderas, the Krusty Krab is left without food and the members of the SpongeBob community – gloomy cephalopod Squidward, obtuse echinoderm Patrick, miserly crustacean Mr. Krabs and weirdly out-of-place mammal Sandy – are thrown into a panic. The SpongeBob movie indulges in hyperbole (like when Bob and Plankton build a time machine of out a photo booth travel to the future to find Bikini Bottom a deserted, barren, wasteland. They’ve been gone for *shudder* four days) and the occasional “WTF?” joke like a bit later in the time travel 
sequence when Bob and Patrick find themselves on a Dolphin-controlled spaceship. The cetaceous galactic overseer they encounter complains of not being able to use the bathroom in 10,000 years. When the lower sea creatures offer to spell the guardian space dolphin, Jupiter uses that very moment to collide with Saturn. I felt like I was watching “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” which is OK; I love ATHF.
It’s both clever and a tad disturbing when SpongeBob reveals why he has not committed a burger recipe to memory despite the thousands he’s cooked, but it sets up a plot where the quintet of sea friends actually find sand, boardwalk and piracy in open air. This isn’t the best comedy you’ll see in 2014, but if your kids drag you, don’t fight them; it’s short and you can do a lot worse.
♪Who made some celluloid in 3D?
SpongeBob SquarePants!
That squishy moronic tie-wearin’ toady
SpongeBob SquarePants!
If one and one-half hours you wish to waste
SpongeBob SquarePants!
Then take up a seat. No need to make haste
SpongeBob SquarePants! ♫
Rated PG, 93 Minutes
D: Paul Tibbitt
W: Glenn Berger & Jonathan Aibel
Genre: Sea humor
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Your ever-smiling five-year-old
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Your goth child
♪ Parody inspired by “SpongeBob Squarepants Theme Song”
