(Review originally written at 26 July 2006)
Fans of SpongeBob and its special humor will certainly enjoy this movie, although it's not as good as the television show. But at least the story is bigger and more adventurous than an average SpongeBob episode.
The movie, the story and its humor mostly relies on its randomness. The randomness works good and fun in the television series but its not quite good enough to fill an entire movie with, even though the movie is only 90 minutes short. It falls flat, especially toward the ending, that is disappointingly simple and ridicules. No big finale, just a simple conclusion.
Many new but also many pointless characters are introduced. King Neptune has become a different character from the show and is this time voiced by Jeffrey Tambor. The Mindy character (Scarlett Johansson) is a pointless one. She could had worked in the movie and its story if she perhaps had been someone's love interest (Patrick's). Probably the only good new character is the assassin Dennis (Alec Baldwin). He is a cool and dangerous character.
Luckily the fun main characters are also present. SpongeBob and Patrick form a great stupid comical duo and Mr. Krabs and Squidward are also present but unfortunately a bit underused in the movie, especially Squidward, who always is such a fun, grumpy and dry character to watch in the television show.
You would normally expect from a featured animated movie to be better and more detailed than its television show. There however is hardly any difference notable in terms of style and quality of the animations. Only thing that looks better is the life action. But of course when you have David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff as a character, you can't get any better life action, except when you have Chuck Norris maybe. Not sure if the pirates were completely necessary, they made a pointless and unfunny impression on me.
This movie will probably divide the fans of the television show into two groups. One group will love this movie for its fun, simple adventurous movie and others will find it disappointing that the typical SpongeBob humor doesn't work out quite as well as in the television show. I personally am somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed watching the movie but also have to admit that watching the television show is more fun and overall better to watch.
7/10
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