Director: Paul Tibbitt
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Paul Tibbitt, Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 92 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2015

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Rating notes: Mild themes and violence

The ideal reviewer for this film would be a six year old, girl or boy. The Australian Catholic Film Office does not have this kind of ideal reviewer on its staff, so what is an older reviewer to do! Describe the experience of watching the film with 30 of the ideal reviewers, some parents and teachers.

Actually, it is quite an experience to sit with this kind of audience to watch a film which is squarely, squarepantily, aimed at them and not their parents. Although one needs to add that the Pirate King, Burger Beard, had a face behind his thick beard and a voice that sounded familiar enough. After a minute or two, it was Antonio Banderas, so something for the parents to look forward to see how he handled working the cartoon characters, how he behaved like a villain, how he got his comeuppance and realised that it was not wise to tangle with SpongeBob and his friends.

The main thing to say about the audience was that they gave no impression of being a captive audience. Rather, they seemed enthralled the whole time, only one little boy going out with his father to the toilet. It was rather surprising that they tended to be quiet rather than rowdy as well as quiet during most of the film, laughing out loud at some of the moments (of the slightly breakwind and trousers down variety) and the number of the pratfalls with people falling over or being hit, that kind of thing. (The reviewer realised that these moments with little kid giggles proliferate in so many American comedies these days, allegedly for adults, getting lots of little kid giggles with the very same incidents.)

Probably most of the young audience come prepared, watching SpongeBob on television, comparatively long time fans. So, they knew SpongeBob and his situation beneath the sea, the restaurant selling crab patties and Mr Krabs and its hard times, the star-shaped Patrick, Squidward, Kyle, the issue of a secret formula for making the crab patties and a nasty Plankton, SpongeBobs old foe (although he does make good, more or less) trying to discover and steal the formula.

Whether the audience guessed it, but the parents and teachers and reviewers probably did, it’s the pirate king who has stolen the formula and is making good on it, quite profitably. This means a lot of pursuit by SpongeBob and his friends, entering into the spirit of the thing, experiencing some strange shapes and sizes with the appearances of their characters, but with great heroics (of the suitable for six-year-old style), and they win the day.

The animation is bright and colourful, the characters clearly shaped and amusing, especially SpongeBob himself. IMDb research reveals that not only has there been the television series but there have been several previous SpongeBob films, some straight to video: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (with such voices as Alec Baldwini, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Tambour and David Hasselhoff), 2004; Sponge Bob SquarePants Spongicus, 2009. And there was a television special, SpongeBob SquarePants, Lights, Camera, Pants, 2005, introducing audiences to the animators and how they created the series. Not sure whether this is the kind of information that the six-year-old reviewer would have written, but each of them obviously experienced it with relish.

So, reviewed by an adult, resisting any temptation to write like the ideal young reviewer!