SpongeBob: Sponge Out of Water

Review Written By: Adolph Vega

3D

This movie was made to be in 3D, seriously I believe it was filmed in 3D and the graphical style of the cartoon seems to fit 3D like a glove. The movie uses several layers of 3D and you can clearly tell when one object is closer or farther away from the viewers. The image is incredibly sharp and vivid in 3D and the landscapes and characters just fit at home in 3D. At times it can give the illusion of a 3D diorama effect and your just peering into this world from the outside looking in. Depth 3D is used well to showcase distance and scope but pop out 3D is the real highlight. Several times the movie will have objects flying at the viewer and popping out and floating in 3D space. I feel if you would watch this movie in 2D it would be awkward because the visuals are so meant to be in 3D it would look odd. I heard many children saying oh cool I really like this 3D, and I have to agree. Simply put the 3D in this movie is so good and presented in such a way with various scenes being purposely gimmicky to showcase 3D I would not want to ever watch it in 2D.

 Final Verdict: Great 3D

Movie:

I am no outsider when it comes to SpongeBob and his many surreal sea adventures. I have seen a dozen or so episodes over the years and am knowledgeable of the characters and basic premise of the TV show. I have not seen the first SpongeBob movie, and I haven’t watched the newer episodes. All that being said I am not a fan of this movie, simply because its lazy story telling that repeats many previous storylines from the show. When it comes to animated television shows that turn into motion pictures they should follow one basic rule to be considered a success. This rule is simple and is essentially for the movie to be bigger in scope than a usual episode and is more than just one big episode. For me this is defined by having character growth, a fully developed and epic story that couldn’t be displayed in a typical episode. SpongeBob: Sponge out of water fails at this basic idea because it’s nothing more than a long episode and uses the same old storylines of previous popular episodes and is barren of creativity. The story presented in this movie makes no sense because it’s surreal nature. The SpongeBob television show has always had surreal elements within the show so this isn’t a departure from that norm. The story involves the crabby patty recipe vanishing and SpongeBob attempting to solve the mystery. The movie has elements of time travel, and the ability to adjust it’s own story by characters literally rewriting the script and a magical space dolphin. Trying to explain this storyline is like explaining what the color purple tastes like. This movie makes no sense and is just a jumbled surreal mess with too may stories. The surreal nature of SpongeBob is both the best asset and its greatest weakness. This surreal nature makes the story very random, strange and sometimes funny and interesting. At the same time this surreal random nature can cause the movie to change focus instantly, and at any time something magical or amazing can change the storyline instantly. In literature a term for this is Deus Ex Machina and SpongeBob is guilty of abusing this with a magical dolphin. Abusing Deus Ex machine cheapens the story because it doesn’t matter what happens because it can easily be changed on a whim without consequence. It’s random for the sake of being random and this aspect becomes annoying, as it causes the viewer to loose interest because eventually you stop caring about what happens in the story or with the characters. The characters act exactly like they do in the show and any character development is lost as the movie ends, as things reset and nothing is learned or resolved. One of the strangest aspects of this movie is the fact it starts off by introducing the characters and scenario to the audience. This makes no sense at all and is a total waste time, I cannot imagine somebody coming into this movie and being ignorant of all the characters and basic premise, why would they? . This is the second movie of a long-standing TV show, so why they choose to reintroduce the characters and setting? Regarding the characters they are one note and have no depth at all. The biggest issue with the story is the simple fact it’s recycling plots points from previous popular episodes. The time travel element, the magical pen, the crabby patty heist are all stories done before and frankly done better in the TV show. Overall the movie is very speedy and chaotic in pacing and any humor I found was too few and far between. One joke they repeat is the pronunciation of the word Team, it wasn’t funny the first time they said it and it becomes tedious when it’s repeated the tenth time. I understood this movie is meant for children so I shouldn't be too critical, but I don't think kids movies can be given an automatic pass. Kids movies should enjoyable to not only the children but the also be enjoyable to the adult who will take the children to the theatre. This movie is also very misleading and maybe 40% the movie is live action super power scenes from the ads and the majority of this movie is a traditional cartoon. The movie ends with a fun and creative rap scene that sadly was cut short. SpongeBob: Sponge out of water is not an unwatchable mess; it's just totally uninspired. This movie is not interested in being more than simple entertainment for children, and has no grand cinematic aspirations. This movie does nothing to justify a theatrical release and should have been a TV special instead, because it fundamentally fails of being a worthwhile full release motion picture. Sadly this movie is only enjoyable to children and if your an adult taking your children to watch this it’s going to be a long 93 minutes. 

Final Verdict: 3/10

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