Life is dandy in Bikini Bottom for SpongeBob Squarepants (Tom Kenny) and his friends Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) and Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence). However, when the top-secret recipe for Krabby Patties is stolen, SpongeBob finds that he must join forces with perpetual adversary Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) and come ashore to battle a fiendish pirate named Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas), who has his own plans for the delicious delicacies.
As a fan of both the SpongeBob series and the first SpongeBob movie from 2004, I was quite looking forward to the long-awaited sequel (well, in the way that any crazy SpongeBob story could be considered a follow-up to what's come before it) Sponge Out of Water. I can try and shuck off my fandom by saying that it's directly due to my kids, but admittedly SpongeBob is a show that's proven to be entertaining for all ages and actually contains very clever elements to it. Aside from the fact that, when you boil it down, it follows the time-honored cartoon tradition of "one character annoys the holy hell out of another character."
Having written all that, I'm giving Sponge Out of Water a moderate recommendation. It's got some golden moments of weird, surreal glee, but there are also parts that are a huge mess. I know, it's weird to criticize something like SpongeBob for being too untethered, but when it prevents the story from gelling the way it should you wind up with a movie that sort of feels like a bunch of separate SpongeBob episodes all tacked together in a row.
