Fun fact: When a pineapple stays underwater for over twenty years, it molds into an ugly abomination. Sponge on the Run is the third theatrical release in Nickelodeon's global phenomenon and, despite coming out so late in the game, was one of the earliest 2020 movies to get pulled from a theatrical release (at least in the US) and get saved for a streaming release, which is what I witnessed tonight. Frankly, the trailers didn't exactly catch my eye, and if I were to have watched the film, I most likely would have saved it for streaming anyway, but I didn't expect the ugly abomination, the downright garbage-induced imsult to one of my childhood icons, that I got.
THE STORY
Big shocker: Plankton is after the Krabby Patty secret formula. (Yeah, we'll talk about that in a bit.) This time, however, he realizes that Spongebob is the reason why he never gets the formula, so when King Posideon sends out a decree for all snails in the sea to be sent to him, he kidnaps Gary and sends him over, forcing Spongebob to go on a big adventure to the "lost" city of Atlantis to rescue him.
WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT
Just so you know, this time around, I'm scraping at the bottom of the barrel for these bits....
This was the closest that the movie ever got to being funny for me. King Posideon and his assistant reminded me a lot of King Louie and his assistant from Disney's Robin Hood. They were charismatic and easily the most reserved of the characters.
Other Bits:
-The color scheme is okay
-Young Spongebob is cute on the eyes
-The Patty Wagon gets awesome upgrades
WHAT DOESN'T WORK ABOUT IT
Spongebob's first movie, for any problems it may have had, at least kept a consistent, focused plot flowing. However, it seems that the series transcends into further nonsense with each entry, and sorry to say, this is the pinnacle of that. The city of Atlantis is hyped up to be a city of death and mayhem, someplace no one is ever to go, and then it's presented as a tourist attraction. Like, what? But it gets worse than that; there's a scene where Spongebob and Patrick randomly pull up to a saloon in a Western town (no Rango cameo, mind you), and they come across ghost pirate cowboy zombies that have their own dance number. I had to check to make sure I wasn't baked after that.
I am sick of this..... Can you imagine if every Batman movie had Joker as the villain, or if every Spider-Man movie had Green Goblin as the villain? I mean, come on, does every Spongebob movie need to be about Plankton getting the Krabby Patty formula? Come on, the Flying Dutchman, Bubble Bass, Squilliam.... It was fun seeing Plankton as the bad guy in the first movie, but throw in some variety, would ya? What's worse, though, is that I guess because of the recent success of films like 2019's Joker, they try to make Plankton a SYMPATHETIC villain, and his attempt to win our hearts comes right out of nowhere and has no buildup to it.
As demonstrated by the oh-so-(not-)brilliant "sense of irony" joke in the trailer, most if not all of the jokes in this movie are bottom of the barrel garbage. There's a few jokes that made me laugh, but for the most part, it just shows how much the series has used up every bit of steam it has. This time, however, the animation tries drastically to make up for its lack of well written humor by exaggerating the animation in a desperate attempt for amusement, and it DOES NOT WORK AT ALL. There's an entire minute long scene at the beginning where Spongebob and Patrick just repeatedly say good morning to each other. It's painful.
Speaking of the animation, though, let's get to my absolute biggest problem with the movie....
These characters were not designed to be CG characters, and this ugly monstrosity demonstrates why. The 2D animation looked gorgeous because it was simple designs that gave the characters a charming, accessible look. Here, every character has their textures filled out to the tee, and it's just hideous to see every little pore on Spongebob, every bump on Squidward, and every strand of fur on Sandy..... GOOD GOD, DOES SANDY LOOK HIDEOUS IN THIS....
Other Bits:
-Tiffany Haddish is barely in this
-Keanu Reaves doesn't add too much
-The soundtrack has too many modern songs thrown in
-Are we just ignoring King Neptune? (And other continuity errors)
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Sponge on the Run takes the Spongebob I grew up with, throws it on the ground, and stomps it into the dust. It's ugly to look at, painfully unfunny, and overly exaggerated, unlike the gorgeously animated and ridiculously funny show and first movie that relied less on the animation and more on the clever writing to get its laughs. I'm glad I saved this for streaming, because if I had to look at this ugliness on the big screen, I probably wouldn't have lasted ten minutes.
My Rating:
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