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The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run Movie Review

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run is a 2020 animated family comedy film directed by Tim Hill. It’s the third entry in the SpongeBob film series.

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“His absence has taught me that much.

And I’m not just talking about the

money I’m losing with him gone.

Okay, fifty percent talking about the money,

fifty percent talking about I truly miss the boy“

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SpongeBob and Patrick embark on a rescue mission to save Gary, who has been kidnapped by King Poseidon, traveling to the Lost City of Atlantic City. The movie also reveals the origin of SpongeBob and Gary’s meeting for the first time as children. This was clearly a marketing ploy for the next spin-off called Kamp Koral. I do not have a problem with that, but I am simply not interested in seeing these characters as kids. I have never gotten the kid versions of famous cartoon characters and I was never into that, so this show will not be for me.

Yes, they look cute as kids, but these segments in the film were the least engaging ones as they were so typical and obviously meant to plug the show, but in the movie itself those were just a part of a pointless flashback. As for the rest of the storyline, it’s fairly simple and stretched to over an hour and it shows that it was not meant for such a long runtime as they put in so many different scenes and plot points that were mostly just filler.

I loved the first act, but everything afterward went downhill. The first act was charming and I loved Plankton and his plan. He was very entertaining here. Again, SpongeBob and Patrick are the main characters and Squidward and Krabs are underutilized, which bothered me as I prefer the latter two, but at least Bob and Patrick are well realized and their friendship here is endearing.

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Sponge on the Run is the first movie to introduce CGI onto this property. At first skeptical, eventually I’d come to really appreciate this effort. This is a terrific example of superbly incorporated modern animation into an older property akin to ‘The Peanuts Movie’. It’s polished and colorful and very modern, but also quite old-fashioned in its fittingly simplistic approach at both imagery and character animation.

Sponge on the Run started off strong with a very good first act, but then it became a total mess. It has such a simple premise that was needlessly stretched to over an hour worth of runtime, thus we got too many flashbacks and filler material. It again goes to show that this property is better suited for short-form television. The highlight here is the animation. They introduced for the first time CGI and it absolutely works as the simplistic, cute and colorful approach is thankfully retained.

My Rating – 3