At least he creators of the first movie knew what they were doing. The makers of this film absolutely had no idea how to turn this into a good and fun genre movie to watch.

It should tell you enough already that main cast and crew members of the first movie are no part of this film. I like to believe that they were smart enough to stay away as far as possible from this obvious inferior sequel.

From a sequel to a movie like "Piranha", you would expect them to go even more overboard with things, this time around. But instead of more gore, more nudity and more fun, there is less of everything. Especially the fact that there isn't really any good gore present is very disappointing. And the gore that is present in the movie is just far too fake looking for my liking. It prefers to use computer effects over practical effects, which was a really poor pick, in my opinion.

But what makes the movie just bad to watch is the fact that the story is all over the place. It doesn't really follow a good a clear main plot line and none of the characters is fun or even likable enough to care for.

This movie really has some bad and lazy writing in it. This shouldn't always be a problem for a movie of this sort though. I mean, the first "Piranha" movie sure had lots of big plot holes in it as well but the fun of the whole movie compensated a lot. It actually was a part of what made the movie so fun to watch. It made it a spoof of the genre, by making fun of all the clichés and weaknesses, including lots of nonsensical stuff and big plot holes. So really, deliberate bad written can be fun but I feel that in this case it wasn't deliberate at all. It's just incompetence and that's also what makes it bad and annoying to follow all.

When the end comes, you suddenly also start to realize that everything that happened before really didn't mattered and totally wasn't being relevant for the movie at all. You could say that the movie only builds up to its last 30 minutes or so, which isn't even being a good movie finale. It was supposed to be one big bloodbath and orgy or gore but let me tell you that compared to the first movie, this one felt like a kids film.

Really, it all could had been saved with some good humor but that is also incredibly lacking in this movie as well. They had no idea how to make things fun and even when the movie is going over-the-top, it just isn't being all that funny to watch.

It's just incredibly bad all and not in a good or fun way at all. Skip it please! Or else they might make another one...

3/10

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(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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