The attitude we should have is one that embraces life’s challenges, but as of now, it would make sense to create a remix of SpongeBob’s “Best Day Ever” and call it Worst Day Ever. This is how I feel after having watched the opening of the first spin-off film for SpongeBob SquarePants.
The animated children’s comedy series depicts the adventures of an overly optimistic, jolly sea sponge named SpongeBob who lives in a pineapple under the sea. It was created by Stephen Hilgenberg and first airs in 1999. Since then, the series has come out with comics, vid game s, two spin-off shows, and four films, with another two scheduled for next year. It is a massive, sprawling, franchise, but the only problem is that its creator, Stephen Hillenberg, died in 2018. It may be harsh to say, but the franchise does seem to decline gradually since that moment. The very first feature film centered on the titular character Sponge Bob Square Pants first came out way back in 2004 and it was undoubtedly one of the best animated films ever created. It later had two follow-ups, which are nowhere near that title and are despised as great failures.
The destruction of Bikini Bottom movie is the first spin-off about sandy cheeks who tries to save her home after being captured. The fate of Bikini Bottom is left in the hands of her two friends, Sandy and SpongeBob. They must travel to Texas to save the rest of their friends, who have been abducted by a sinister scientific company.
SAVING BIKINI BOTTOM: THE SANDY CHEEKS MOVIE FAILS TO SAVE ME
As mentioned above, the first SpongeBob SquarePants movie was great, which can’t be said for the next two to follow it and while those films are bad, I will give credit to Sponge Out of Water in how it kept the 2D animation style for majority of its runtime and same with Sponge on the run, it did not have the 2D animation but it did look good visually due to it being styled CG animation. Now with this newest installment, I Search You for a redeeming quality. Yup, not getting one.
The sheer disadvantage regarding human characters in the majority of the Transformer films is exactly the problem that the SpongeBob films also suffer from: having human characters that feel 1-dimensional and serve no contribution or advancement to the story being told Hearing a human voice in Sponge bob square pants has always been an important element of the show, but that was purely for the sake of some joke and never to involve them in the story.
That is not the case with The SpongeBob Square Pants movie as it has handled it well however, this is done with two human characters where one of them is thrust into the emotional story arc of both sponge bob and Patrick while the other is a brief snippet with whom he cameos.
The sequels begin to incorporate too many human characters, especially Save Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, which has about 5% of the film set in bikini bottom and 95% in Texas.
The concern that still remains with this is that the animation of Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is far below any other film that came before which is quite disappointing given that the last film had stunning graphics. When you look at it, the background characters sometimes look horrid, and that’s not to mention that the spoon of a main cast of characters always looked good since they didn’t. And mixing poor animation with live action is just bad for business, and yet this is precisely what the movie is about.
With 95% of this film being set in the Texas environment, this implies that there are human characters who are now more involved in the narrative than ever and it is a perfect example of why humans in the SpongeBob franchise should have brief speaking roles or only be used as a background character.
While Sandy and SpongeBob are making their way to B.O.O.T.S. Laboratory in their quest to save Bikini Bottom, we are introduced to the scientists who are in charge there: Phoebe (Ilia Isorelýs Paulino), Kyle (Matthew Cardarople), and of course our antagonist Sue Nahmee (Wanda Sykes).
We first start with Phoebe and Kyle and since they are quite harmless, it is as they are merely playing out a Disney Channel live action show. It does look like they are enjoying their time filming this film, and that is something you can very much tell through the screen, which is always something good to see–the actors are very much having fun with the particular film regardless of whether it was good or not. The point where Sue is introduced as the baddy is when this movie starts feeling like a bad parody of an Austin Powers film. She is eccentric and incredibly animated in the way she moves. It is true that many people have said that the film goes downhill from her introduction, but it was already let down quite a bit in the build up to this point anyway.
In addition from the horrendous animation, there is quite a lot of poor CGI in the movie and while I cannot go into detail as to how much is used as it is quite a big spoiler, it did make me wonder what the thought process was with the whole villain archetype and the execution of this entire movie.
Since this is Sandy’s film and not SpongeBob, then it follows that there must be characters whose supporting roles are associated with her. Here we get introduced to her family: Pa Cheeks (Craig Robinson), Ma Cheeks, Grouchy Cheeks, Rosy Cheeks, Granny Cheeks who were all voiced by Grey DeLisle, while Johnny Knoxville also gives his voice to Randy Cheeks. The Cheeks family is a nice touch in this movie; they are funny, and since they’re a circus family, they do the wackiest tricks, but since this is a Sandy Cheeks movie, the Cheeks family has less screen time than other characters.
When one revisits the plot’s events, it’s such a comical one that children would appreciate. Sue, a child in the film, is basically saying that she wants to turn the residents of Bikini Bottom into a child’s play figurines. The problem with this though is that when you cut into the plot, it does not make sense anymore. Why not just create effigies instead of abducting real fish for real? Sue’s back story is also one that is dumb, and does nothing but just add unnecessary backstory on why she’s going through all this, and by the time the movie comes to an end, it leaves the audience thinking that her agenda in the movie was not appropriate in the first place.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is yet another disappointing movie which should not have been included in the SpongeBob configurations.
The animation has been done rather sloppily and it makes viewers wonder why the studio couldn’t have opted for 2D animation and saved the Computer Generated Imagery for their proper feature release next year.
The plot is non-linear, and the large audiences do not rely on Wanda Sykes. All of this flick seems to have been in the mind of someone who had a high temperature and for most of the time, words seem inadequate to explain what is going on. Sandy’s relatives were an interesting addition to this movie and how did they allow Sam to anger his grandparents, but sadly almost all their time on screen is nonexistent due to the human characters dominated.
If this is any indication of how the Plankton movie is going to be, then let’s just say these spin-off movies do not bode well.
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