Spongebob fans rejoice! To my dismay, I live with 3 of them, so of course I had to watch this movie sometime.

The story is pretty darn deluded. Seriously. The pace, the storyline, everything is pretty bad and can get painful to watch. There are new boring characters introduced. King Neptune(which is a bit of a plot hole, because there was another King Neptune in an earlier episode of Spongebob) and Mindy the Mermaid. King Neptune is only there for bald jokes, and Mindy is just stupid. And then the villian(next to Plankton that is) is on the screen for an entire 7 minutes, i'd estimate. The live action portion was just mixed together horribly! It didn't even fit and it just clashed. And the humour is so aweful! The series is actually kind of funny. This is not...

But...someone please kill me...I actually liked the scene where Spongebob and Patrick were getting drunk off ice cream, which is where the half star came from. "WAAAAAIIITORRRRR!"

Not worth seeing, unless your a fan of the series and even if you are, I still think you shouldn't see it, unless you would like to get rid of those few extra I.Q points...

Many things can go wrong with a movie adaptation of a cartoon TV show. First: the voices may be changed. Sometimes studios will change the lead voices and replace them with famous people's voices. This movie keeps Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke and Mr. Lawrence of the original principal cast and only adds celebrity voices like Alec Baldwin, Scarlett Johansson and Jeffery Tambor as new characters created for the movie.

Second: The film might look nothing like the show. The character designs and background of Spongebob remains true to the TV show. This is a smart movie by the studio. Movies like The Rugrats Movie, The Wild Thornberries Movie and even Beavis and Butthead Do America have a distinct style and the studios polish it to the extreme. In the case of The Rugrats Movie, the following season of Rugrats looked just like the movie. Spongebob can be intertwined with episodes of the series and no one would be able to tell (except for the widescreen format).

Third: Because of the bigger budget that comes with the feature film, studios try to put in some computer animation for effect. Spongebob does this. To their credit, it doesn't look that bad. But they still shouldn't have done it.

Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie is the coming of age tale of a sponge of the movie title's moniker and his starfish friend Patrick, as they embark on a journey to find the crown of King Neptune. They have to overcome tremendous odds, free all the fish from the clutches of Plankton, and defeat the bounty hunter, Dennis (Baldwin). Oh, and David Hasselhoff makes a cameo and is a major player in the third act. (This is, by far, his best film to date)

The story is self contained and the characters are introduced appropriately at the start of the film. You do not have to be a follower of the show to enjoy this movie. But you do have to be a fan of absurd humour, like Ren and Stimpy. There is also enough humour that kids wouldn't understand to keep all adults entertained. The laughs are huge and the animation beautiful. You even get to see Spongebob drunk and hungover and Hasselhoff's hydraulic pecks!

You may not believe me, but this movie is worth watching whether you are a Spongebob fan or not. Honest.

Okay, I like the Spongebob series a lot, but the movie went too far . . . I felt my sanity slip away as I watched this.

It's a waste of time if you ask me, but it did have its funny moments.

The animation and the live-action/animation sequences were good and funny.

But it's not worth it unless you're a huge Spongebob fan.

Two stars.

An entertaining movie with good animation (better than the show) and funny live action/animation sequences.
James

If you hate the series and think it's stupid, you probably won't like this movie. If you loved the series, you'll probably love it. I fall into the latter.

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie was the funniest movie I have ever seen (judging from how forced the later episodes have been, I thought it would the opposite) and in my humble objective opinion, is the best Nickelodeon movie they have ever put out. Best of all, the humor relies on minimal cultural references.

That said, the plot was surprising good and fast-paced. I wasn't expecting the story to have so many twists and turns.

The animation is smooth and good and the voices are perfect.

In summary: a great movie for SpongeBob fans, and I can't wait for it to come to DVD.

NOTE: When you see this film, stay until after the end credits. There's a gag with the pirates.