Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new review! For this one, I will be taking a look at the latest SpongeBob SquarePants spin-off movie to hit Netflix, this time centered on the main antagonist of the series, Plankton. This is a part of a plan Nickelodeon was developing in order to create spin off movies centered on different SpongeBob characters with the first one being Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, which debuted last year to a pretty terrible reception from fans. This one was originally conceived by the voice of Plankton himself, Mr. Lawrence, and was going to be a half hour television special until the people in charge decided to put this idea into a feature length format. As a fan of SpongeBob, I was admittedly intrigued at how Lawrence and director, David Needham, would go about handling Plankton in his own film. Now that the film has finally been made, was it the right call? Let’s jump right in and see what nefarious schemes Plankton has cooking up in his own feature!
We start off in the town of Bikini Bottom where things are going as well as they usually do with Plankton once again trying to steal the Krabby Patty formula from Mr. Krabs. After another unsuccessful attempt, he comes home to find that his computer wide Karen has taken matters into her own hands and is trying to do things her way to help Plankton achieve his goals. Not liking this, Plankton completely disregards her idea, making Karen snap, with her realizing just how little regard he has for her. Thus, she transforms into a larger mech and enacts a plant to transform the Bikini Bottom into an ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Now Plankton must team up with Spongebob in order to stop her before it is too late.
Personally, I’ve always really enjoyed Plankton as a character, with him being a very fun maniacal villain that can get caught up in his own ego a lot. Lawrence clearly has a great understanding of the character and I felt he came up with a solid idea here in exploring more of not only Plankton himself, but his complicated relationship with Karen. It is this aspect of the film that I thought was executed the best where we get a nice exploration of Plankton’s flaws and the film does a good job in making one sympathize with Karen and her frustrations. There is a lot of time spent in exploring their backstory in how they came to be together and I thought those scenes were a lot of fun and creative, giving some neat insight into this relationship while also adding to the proceedings. It is also here where the comedy lands the most with there being the usual silly, over the top SpongeBob humor, but when that shines, it can be delightful with there being plenty of fun self aware jokes and highly amusing visual gags that managed to put a smile on my face. I also enjoyed a lot of the callbacks to not only past episodes, but also fairly recent ones as well as the theatrical movies.
That being said there are times where that comedy didn’t do a whole lot for me, with there being some stretches where things just kind of felt standard SpongeBob in a way. This also adds to the issue of the non Plankton stuff not fully registering as much as when the focus is on him and Karen. I will also say that while I did enjoy this film for what it was, I’ll admit that it might’ve been better served as a special. I like the premise, but I do think that making it into a movie made it feel stretched thin and it did feel like there was a lot done in order to extend this into feature length such as adding musical numbers and the aforementioned flashback scenes as well as extending certain jokes longer than necessary. Again, the idea is good one and the movie is decently entertaining for most of its runtime, I just don’t know if it justified being a whole movie.
When it comes to the animation for this project, they decided to go the computer animated route a la the last two SpongeBob features (the aforementioned Sandy spin off and Sponge on the Run) and it looks decent for the most part. I’ll admit was not sure how to feel about it at first, as there are aspects of it that do a little to be desired for this kind of movie with some stiff character movements the graphics not looking as great at times with it kind of resembling a video game sometimes. That being said, one gets used to it and there are some strong visual elements that manage to work. The main characters are translated quite well in this style, with some solid expression work done that makes the facial features shine. Plus the scenes of physical comedy and gags are nicely done with the right amount of energy and are fun to watch unfold. When the visuals truly shine are during the flashback sequences where we get some really cool uses of different styles with a flashback scene involving some 1930s rubberhose animation being a highlight as is a musical sequence that felt very psychedelic fever dream in its execution. I also found the use of live action in certain parts to be pretty clever as well.
Speaking of the musical sequences, they are on the whole a lot of fun with the songs being surprisingly solid in their own rights as well. My personal favorites were Plankton’s introductory song, “I’m Plankton”, which does a solid job re introducing the character and expressing his maniacal yet comical personality, and “Say My Name, Karen” which is a great and catchy villain song that has a nice techno vibe to it. I also thought “Welcome to Bikini Bottom” is a solid introductory tune, “I Made a New Friend” was a nice way to convey Plankton’s feelings when building Karen, and “I’m a Jerky Jerk” is a fun tune expressing Plankton’s inner thoughts. They are all pretty enjoyable even if it is clear they were thrown in just to extend the length of the movie. Still when they work I can’t say I minded too much.
As mentioned before, the movie works in large part due to that Plankton and Karen dynamic which is a lot of fun to watch unfold. Mr. Lawrence can play this role in his sleep and he brings his high energy vocals and is able to nail the different aspects the character expresses whether it be evil, panic, or even endearment in some parts. He plays well off of Jill Talley who really gets to shine here in a way that she hasn’t really before as Karen. She gets show off some really impressive vocal range playing all of the different personalities of Karen and seeing her go full maniacal mode is fun to see. I also just found the way their relationship developed here to be quite sweet and made me appreciate their dynamic more. As for the rest of the Bikini Bottom residents, well SpongeBob is obviously the one with next biggest role, aiding Plankton in his mission. Tom Kenney of course bring his usual high spirits to the character, however I didn’t think his stuff landed all that much for me. Sure, there are some chuckles here and there, but it was fairly routine with some gags just not landing all that much (a running joke involving him doing a psychiatrist impression stands out in this regard). Everyone else is not given a whole lot to do with even Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), not really playing much of a huge role despite being Plankton’s nemesis. That being said I did enjoy a bit of the “gal pals” dynamic between Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence), Pearl (Lori Alan), and Mrs. Puff (Mary Jo Catlett) that is present later on in the movie.
On the whole, I found Plankton: The Movie to be a decent enough outing for the iconic cartoon baddie. It may have fared better as a special episode due to the story being fairly thin and not all of the humor lands, the animation takes some getting used to, and quite a few characters could have been utilized more. That being said, it gets by thanks to the main Karen and Plankton dynamic working, the jokes that do land are very funny, aspects of the animation still work well, there’s some fun energy, and the songs are fun. It may not reach the heights of when the franchise is at its best, but there is still enough solid entertainment value to it that should please some longtime fans and families alike. As someone who enjoys this character, I’m happy Mr. Lawrence was able to see this project through and make something that stays true to Plankton, even if there are aspects that could’ve been improved. Still, this works in biding the time till the next theatrical SpongeBob movie, Search for SquarePants, releases this December!
Rating: B-
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