- SpongeBob Squarepants braces for an epic food fight in Sponge Out of Water
This past weekend Fifty Shades of Grey opened to whopping commercial success, enjoying the most profitable opening weekend ever for an R-rated movie. It came not long after American Sniper—another R-rated movie that audiences seem to enjoy debating more than actually watching—sat atop America’s box office chart for about a month. Clint Eastwood’s latest had been dethroned one weekend earlier, however, by another, more genial cultural phenomenon: SpongeBob SquarePants, whose second theatrical feature, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, drew in audiences to the tune of $50 million. Sponge Out of Water happens to be a better film than Sniper or Grey, though it hasn’t received nearly as much critical attention as either. One reason might be that, unlike the others, The SpongeBob Movie is way more fun to watch than discuss.
For all the technical sophistication of a recent Shrek knockoff like The Book of Life, the story is pure Hollywood formula, derived from grown-up adventure movies as much as fairy tales. No wonder kids get restless at something like that—on a subconscious level, they must realize they aren’t really watching a children’s movie but rather a grown-up movie dumbed down for kids. No amount of one-liners or snazzy visuals can distract kids from a paucity of truly childlike thinking. On the other hand, kids will sit reverentially for a simpler-looking cartoon like Sponge Out of Water—or a slow, earnest one like My Neighbor Totoro—if they connect with its worldview.
