Delayed Reaction: The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

The Pitch: Spongebob in live-action.

I don't like Spongebob Squarepants. I never understood why so many people of different ages love that show/character. Literally, I remember the 1999 premiere of the show being the moment when I realize that maybe I'm aging out of Nickelodeon's programming. I don't get it. I watched this film only because I have an obsessive need to complete my Club 50 project and because I like to check in on things I don't like occasionally to see if something finally clicks..

There's another reason too. This was a substantial box office hit. It doubled the box office gross of the first film which benefited from a novelty factor and the still viable Nickelodeon Studios branding in 2004. By the time Sponge Out of Water was released, Spongebob was a 16 year old series that was only sporadically releasing new episodes. Why did the film do so well? As with most Jan/Feb hits, it was a number of stars aligning. It had the surprisingly strong hook of "Live-Action Spongebob", which was all over the advertising, even though the live-action bit doesn't happen until the 1-hour mark. I felt pretty duped by that when I watched it. I imagine others did as well. More importantly, the market was starving for a family film at the time. It was released February 6, 2015. All families had that January was the Lucasfilm bomb Strange Magic, and Paddington, which exceeded expectations stateside. More importantly, it was an abnormally weak Christmas season for families. Night at the Museum 3 and Annie did fine. The last movie in the G-PG range to match Spongenbob in the box office was Big Hero 6 all the way back on November 7th. That's a long time for that audience to wait. Even better for Spongebob, it wasn't until Cinderella over a month later before another strong family film came along. That's a long time to have the market cornered.

Enough box office examination. I clearly don't have much to say about the actual film. It's a super-sized episode of Spongebob Squarepants. I'm sure that appeals to some people much more than it does to me. If you play a drinking game for every time someone says "team" or "teamwork" in the movie, you'd die of alcohol poisoning. The rap battle at the very end is my favorite part without a doubt and it has the least to do with the central character. Oh well.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend