Of more interest to me than the movie itself were the special circumstances in which I was able to see it a week ahead of its release on Paramount+ TV. I use that JustWatch app to see what arrives daily on the 500 streaming services I subscribe to, and they listed this movie on Amazon Prime this past Friday! Even though Nickelodeon properties are owned by Paramount, who are taking over CBS All Access as of next Friday and supposedly launching with the premiere of this title that's been delayed since summer 2020. Must've been an oversight, but I know a brief window of opportunity when I see one, so I watched the movie on Prime as soon as possible that afternoon and by the time it ended 90 minutes later, Amazon had it listed as "video not currently available" to anyone for viewing. Just made it!

That may not sound like a wise use of time especially given the rating I've slapped on it, but I was looking forward to this 3rd SpongeBob adventure last year. I used to watch the TV series a couple decades ago, the first two movies were splendidly giddy comic pinball machines, and this one has some Keanu magic, so all aboard!

Shame that the facade of SpongeBob at least in this permutation has lost much of its lustre. I dunno maybe it's a Covid symptom or something but no matter how reality-defyingly, concept-exaggeratingly zany things got, like they always get in Bikini Bottom, it was almost never funny. Could be they're repeating themselves too much? I recognized at least a handful of motifs that the other movies already dug their heels into for better comic effect (like the montage of SpongeBob and Patrick on a bender, them on a road trip, them having to face down a bar full of threatening types, etc.). The story's banal - they have to rescue Gary the Snail pet, yawn. And hey look, another movie villain whose root problem is not having any friends, which he cries about at the end until they decide to redeem him (it's only been a few weeks since "Barb and Star" came out). And we get to see how they all met as toddlers, have they really never mined that cliché until now? 

The sense of humor itself has gotten considerably lamer in some parts - call this "The Overstayed its Welcome Animated Sitcom Effect" and never forget the tragic tale of "The Simpsons"; in other words, maybe "SpongeBob" has naturally changed writers/showrunners so many times after such an epic lifespan that it's unreasonable to hope for the same consistent quality this far into its run. The antics have gotten tiresome and the people behind it don't notice. They use dreadfully obvious needle drops like "Livin' La Vida Loca", "Dream Weaver", "On the Road Again", and one scene in particular may be a cringe-y nadir of most movie-related things from 2020: when a bunch of live action zombie western bar folk start hip hop dancing while Snoop Dogg in person gets a rap going. There's no inherent problem with Snoop, but the whole thing is just a rancid blend of what's supposed to be cool/ironic/weird/funny. Also maybe I’m getting crotchedy but more than once I felt the urge to bark at these once-adorable scamps to shut the fuck up because they were so annoying.

On the plus side, though a touch more lifelessly mannequinized than the old 2D approach, updating this world to 3D CGI here offers some stylistic variety from all the other SpongeBob content out there. It's still a brightly rainbow hued undersea kingdom, but now in more sophisticated renderings! Quite pleasing. And Weezer recorded a nice disposable summer song for the opening (plus an adequate "Take on Me" cover for the ending). Keanu doesn't add much despite being in a lot more of the movie than expected (it's not just a cameo), but seeing him tilt his head every time his "tumbleweed" rolls away made me chuckle. I miss the old days when ScarJo did a voice, Alec Baldwin was the bad guy, and Hasselhoff made was the live action celebrity guest star.

Yet another high profile big budget movie that we were better off not getting in theaters during 2020 because it was mostly mediocre. "Wonder Woman 1984", "Mulan", "The Witches", "The Lovebirds", "Bill & Ted Face the Music", "Artemis Fowl", "Scoob!", "Tom and Jerry", probably most of the remaining big 2020 titles that still haven't come out yet. It was never going to be a happy year for studio fare, pandemic or not.