Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie: An average episode of the show SpongeBob SquarePants lasts 11 minutes. Now for the folks who are obsessed with that Laffy Taffy yellow dude with the googly eyes’ and the super loud laughter, this must be great news as a feature length film probably sounds about 10 times more entertaining. Add the twist that a crazy scientist is trying to duplicate every single aquatic being in his part of the sea, and you have too much Sponge Bob for even the most die-hard sponge-head to fathom.
Exclusively released on Netflix, Saving Bikini Bottom: A Sandy Cheeks Movie ‘s centers ever so slightly away from our very porous… er, the eponymous character. You know, that absurdist block of optimistic sponge (voice of video by Tom Kenny) whom the show is named after for the last twenty-five years: SpongeBob SquarePants (recently reached its 300 episode milestone). In other words, Sandy Cheeks is SpongeBob’s a squirrel who loves STEM not the amount of sand or dirt which her square-pant wearing friend is currently suffering from.
“Saving Bikini Bottom” gives viewers the long-awaited details about Sandy including some parts of her childhood that were even unknown to her. She holds true to her Texan roots, a character from the show who wears a diving suit and speaks with an artificial southern accent made by her, having previously mentioned her Garryson background multiple times, yet seldom shows Galveston much less any area above water.
She hails from a town by the Gulf of Mexico and travels halfway across the country where there are none other than few scenes with a parched SpongeBob looking for water or after Sandy ropes in a passing airplane with her lasso. What better method to travel to the US Texan area than to drag her along with Sponge Bob?
In a light-hearted manner by Carolyn Lawrence, Sandy with a combination of math skills bursts to fast conclusions once a large excavator from a B.O.O.T.S. Marine Biology Laboratory catches and viruses tons of her area in a grab. She appeared in disbelief and shock, “That’s the lab that I work for!”
Sandy pops out her laptop, and lo and behold, she discovers that all of her friends – Patrick the starfish, Squidward the Octopus, and Mr. Krabs the Crustacean, all voiced by original cast members – have been kidnapped by a Sue Nahmee (literally meaning “tsunami”), who is working on the so-called “Sea Pals” which is a secret project.
Wanda Sykes, who is a terrible actor, seems to give in an incredibly game performance as Sue, whose hair is colored blue and has been wonderfully styled into delicate waves. Families all over are in shock and disgust: is that really the performance actress Wanda Sykes gave in such films? Parker Posey was great in “Josie and the Pussycats,” Carol Burnett was hilarious in “Annie,” but it’s hard to expect such over-the-top performance style variety from Sykes – who also awkwardly plays a lot of scenes against animated sea creatures. Even if Sykes ends up directing Liza Johnson most failures are theirs; Sykes’ body language especially her eyes seem entirely uncoordinated with the motions of her animated co-stars.
Johnson, also the director who gave us the blockbuster Elvis & Nixon, is more adept at comedy than making kid shows. As for the laughs, ‘Saving Bikini Bottom’ is just weird enough for fans of the show. This hybrid project that uses CG animation with live-action in creative ways joins 2015’s “Sponge out of Water” and 2021’s “Sponge on the Run’ in depicting Steven Hillenburg’s characters in 3D graphics, with a unique twist. It’s 3D that can be viewed with the naked eye without the need for 3D glasses, as they are made to look lifelike with features like textures and shadows.
Hand drawn characters do not lend themselves to that technique, and not very successfully at that (“Pokémon: Detective Pikachu”, anyone?). In contrast, however, those recent sponge bob movies are able to alleviate any discomfort as the use of Edwin’s paintings: there are too many animations to support the series itself, or some situations are simply too crazy to take seriously (like a Zen cactus with Keanu Reeves’ face in Sponge on the run, or the humorous appearance of David Hasselhoff speedboating in the 2004 film). Here, when SpongeBob goes to a waterpark, he sinks underwater and starts tickling people’s feet, which is hysterical.
The animated outing also features an encounter with rattlesnakes, a couple of songs and a Cheeks family reunion, with Johnny Knoxville as the twin brother Randy, Craig Robinson as her proud Pa who also appears in the show and the versatile voice of Grey DeLisle channeling four other characters. It is probably less imaginative than grown-ups would expect but harmless enough for kids. After all, Sandy and SpongeBob through a never-ending process of getting to the lab, can at least start Sue Nahmee’s cloning plan. And just like that, this rather boring escapade is transformed into a world that is awash with SpongeBobs.
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