How nice it would be,
To live in a pineapple under the sea.
Eat a Krabby Patty
For breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I'm not very good with rhymes. But Stephen Hillenburg is, assuming he's behind the SpongeBob theme song, which is arguably the catchiest theme song for a cartoon ever. First a marine biologist and then an animator, it doesn't take a genius to see how SpongeBob came into being. Actually, it really does. That's what makes SpongeBob different from, say, Dora the explorer. Dora does appeal to kids, and is probably more informative than SpongeBob (Dora taught me to count to three in Spanish!!). But when it comes to entertainment, SpongeBob is pure genius.
There's a reason it never loses fans. The theater was an even mix of kids, teenagers and twenty year olds. The show was something that appealed to anyone. This movie is no different. On one level, it's full of kiddy jokes and themes that could move only children. On another, it's full of meta-commentary that makes those very same jokes seem like something else altogether.
The movie starts with an epic food battle between Plankton and SpongeBob over the recipe for the legendary Krabby Patty. But during a climatic tug of war between Bob and Plankton, the bottle disappears. With the recipe for the Krabby Patty gone, Bikini Bottom turns into an apocalyptic cesspool, with its suddenly leather clad citizens (Mad Max?) hunting down Plankton and Bob who form an alliance to find the recipe and restore order. They embark on a journey through time (soo damn trippy-that Tame Impala influence on Hillenburg really shows), and even through SpongeBob's subconscious for the recipe. There's a slight nod to Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy in the former part that's both insane and awesome.
Finally they manage to get the rest of the citizens of Bikini Bottom to trust them and they follow the faint scent of a Krabby Patty together till it leads them to the surface. At this point the movie turns on itself, and a random citizen irritatedly says,"Alright, all secondary characters follow me." And they all turn back leaving only the core characters-the employees of the Krusty Krab plus Patrick and a stowaway Plankton to proceed to the surface. Here the encounter a burger-making pirate with a reality altering book that turns the movie into an epic superhero slugfest that could compete with the Avengers.
If the above gist of the movie doesn't convince to watch it, I don't know what will. But you really should. It's pure nuts. Just to summarise, it's got time travel, journeys through the subconscious, epic Lord Of The Rings-esque journeys, a post apocalyptic Bikini Bottom, and SpongeBob.
My only gripe would be the weird camerawork in the above water parts, but it was clearly done intentionally to make the sequence seem campier. So I'm actually quite okay with it. I'd have said it's too long, but when the credits started rolling I really wanted more. So I apparently have no problems with the movie at all.
So watch it, goddammit. Watch it now.