The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

In 11½ minute-doses, SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced by Tom Kenny) and the other residents of the undersea village Bikini Bottom consistently delight with their goofy behavior and outlandish situations.

Somehow, the aquatic ensemble have a habit of losing their goofy charm when they have a bigger screen, a bigger budget and a feature length running time. As with 2004's The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water has moments of inspired silliness but has the gall to make fans wait for them.

The awkward 3-D doesn't help.

At least the new offering begins by teasing viewers about what they're actually watching. An eccentric pirate known only as Burger-Beard (Antonio Banderas, who seems to be having fun channeling Johnny Depp) steals an ancient book from a dead man's hands.

After dodging a set of obstacles worthy of Indiana Jones, Burger-Beard and his crew full of talking and singing seagulls sit back to hear a story that turns out to be about the familiar world of Bikini Bottom.

This time around, SpongeBob, the world's most famous fry cook, is trying hard to save his job at Mr. Krab's (Clancy Brown) The Krusty Krab. The restaurant's microscopic competitor Plankton (Douglas "Mr. Lawrence" Osowski) has splurged on enough high-tech weapons to keep Wile E. Coyote occupied for years.

Plankton's own eatery, the Chum Bucket, serves cuisine that is just as unhealthful as the fried dishes prepared at The Krusty Krab, but he's incapable of making them taste good. Hence, he must steal Mr. Krab's top secret recipe for the Krabby Patty.

In the melee over the formula, the document dissolves in the seawater. The residents of Bikini Bottom don't know what to do with themselves now that their favorite fatty, high-carb dish is unavailable. SpongeBob and Plankton realize that they have to put their differences aside in order to stop their seabed home from descending into chaos.

The struggle ends up taking the characters through time and even on land, where the characters look like warped 3-D superhero versions of themselves. The extra dimension doesn't really do much for the lovably dim starfish Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) or the hyper squirrel Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence). At least, the grumpy Krusty Krab cashier Squidward (former Jonesboro resident Rodger Bumpass) is delighted with his new Bradley Cooper American Sniper abs, but the new sequences range from side splittingly funny to soggy.

Because of his diminutive size, Plankton squeezes his way into SpongeBob's brain and is horrified to discover why the fellow is always cheery, sweet and a tad odd. Has somebody been watching too many Katy Perry videos lately?

On the downside, much of the material is little more than filler. There are few musical numbers, and it would be nice if there had been even fewer of them. While an ode to teamwork is remarkably witty, some of Pharrell Williams' contributions sound as if they were dashed off in a moment when the muses had a lunch break.

Inflating the world of Bikini Bottom has stretched its entertainment value a little too far. Sometimes it's OK to think small, even if you're the size of Plankton.

MovieStyle on 02/06/2015