Rating: Few Burned Kurnels

Genre: Animation, Family, Comedy, Adventure

Studios: Netflix/Nickelodeon Movies

Cast: Carolyn Lawrence, Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Bill Fagerbakke, Mr. Lawrence, Rodger Bumpass, Ilia Isorelys Paulino, Matty Cardarople and Wanda Sykes

Director: Liza Johnson

Writers: Kaz and Tom Stern

Based on: Spongebob Squarepants created by Stephen Hillenburg

Producer: Robert Engleman

Music by: Moniker

Rated: NR

Release Date: 08/02/24

Runtime: 1h 26m

Tagline: Bring a Friend

Favorite Character: Sandy Cheeks

Quote: “Bikini Bottom, and everyone I ever loved, is gone…and all my streaming videos on demand! I can’t demand them anymore!”- Spongebob Squarepants

Fun Fact: Johnny Knoxville (who voices Sandy’s brother Randy) appeared in Spongebob before, in the episode ‘Extreme Spots’

The Review: Who lives in the Treedome at the bottom of the sea? SANDY CHEEKS! Who loves science and is a big thinker? SANDY CHEEKS! Who has her own movie which ended up being a Netflix stinker? SAND…wait what?

Like many of the Millennials, I was so obsessed with the iconic yellow sponge as a kid and was fortunate to see the first movie that came out 20 years ago. It was no Incredibles but it had immediately became a favorite for the Spongebob fans (most of them probably have just graduated from college)

As the huge Nickelodeon series celebrates 25 years of its broadcast, Netflix decides to execute the celebration of that milestone by releasing a spinoff about a Squirrel from Texas (Carolyn Lawrence) finds Bikini Bottom scooped up by a giant crane, leaving only her, Spongebob and her useless robo horse Sparky standing in front of the ditch that was once their beloved town.

But then the ditch spewed a powerful geyser that takes Sandy and Spongebob out of the ocean and to the Texas as they set off to rescue their town from the B.O.O.T.S. lab (which we learned was Sandy’s home before living underwater) in Galveston. But this isn’t an immediate transportation from point A to point B. Like the adventures in some of other children movies (Like 2017’s My Little Pony), they encounter new characters, both good and bad.

In case you were hibernating through January, someone had just got ahold of the entire movie around that time and leaked it online. Maybe it’s a good thing it happened. Because those who did successfully watch it before Paramount took it down probably did so to warn us with their review videos about this trainwreck that was releasing in August.

Back in B.O.O.T.S. lab we get introduced to the series lowest villians. Wanda Sykes (without her signature voice) playing a main anthologist with a name that clearly felt like writers Kaz and Stern has just taken the name from the Spongebob joke book. Her bozo sidekicks (Ilia Isorelys Paulino and Matty Cardarople) wasn’t any better nor they did they sound like they were even trying.

Animation was below mediocre. Live action was on sight terrible. But the most ‘What in tarnation is that?’ would be the flashback of Sue Nammie which is just a little girl with Wanda Sykes head clumsily cut and paste on the girl’s body.

It is such shameful that Sandy’s character development and the introduction to her family (Craig Robinson, Johnny Knoxville and Grey DeLisle) would have made this movie full of soul. Instead, it was all wasted on what is a animated film that has nothing but endless plot holes, forgettable musical numbers and recycled jokes. Now if only it was a TV special, it could be better…right? Right?