Bob l'Éponge, le film : Éponge en fuite

With a truly heavy heart, I have to say that despite its tremendous promise, the third feature-length SpongeBob movie is a big disappointment. As in the case of its immediate predecessor, the main problem with Sponge on the Run consists in the fact that the producers evidently did not trust the core screenwriters of the series. The hiring of Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, who have the massive hits Kung Fu Panda and Trolls under their belts, reeks of an attempt to place a safe bet, but it actually trips up the film. Aibel and Berger have the preceding Sponge Out of Water on their conscience, and this time it is even more obvious that this duo may be able to make a popular animated feature that does not offend anyone and makes a lot of money, but they definitely do not understand the essence and qualities of SpongeBob (or rather they don’t have those qualities themselves). Though the series about the yellow sponge abounds with brilliantly expressive animation, Dadaist absurdity and meta humour, that does not distinguish it in principle from other series from the end of the 1990s shown on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Rather, its uniqueness consisted in the characterisation of SpongeBob and the series’ overall style deriving from that characterisation, into which Stephen Hillenburg projected his famous good-heartedness, which radiated from every episode. Aibel and Berger, on the other hand, are just calculating cynics who have built their success on strictly filling in tried and true templates and on stupid literalism. Under their leadership, therefore, SpongeBob and his friends have to talk about kindness and empathy in forced sentimental scenes instead of just being themselves. In their script, SpongeBob lost his classic attributes, particularly exaggeration and exuberance, as well his natural sincerity and resourcefulness. The film is basically saved and elevated by its top-quality visual element, which is breathtaking in its innovative grasp of artistic and animation stylisation of 3D characters and objects. Furthermore, it preserves the expressiveness of cartoon animation and has fascinating plasticity and textures. However, the tremendous hard work of the animators has nothing to properly lean on. The hopelessness of the screenplay becomes evident especially in the cameo roles, which again lack exaggeration and are stretched beyond the limits of their wow effect, thus becoming the hollow and unimaginative opposite of what worked in the very first SpongeBob film. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie not only does not age, but thanks to the involvement of Hillenburg and leading talents from the series, it remains an impressive and, at the same time, moving and infinitely entertaining example of what a real SpongeBob feature should look like, unlike this mediocre movie in which SpongeBob is merely present. (10/11/2020)