Saving Bikini Bottom: Endangering a Franchise
To start, it needs to be said that it’s hard to expect anything but the bare minimum for some of Netflix’s animated releases. Some of the service’s releases (such as Vivo, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Nimona) are picked up from other companies that are pouring much more love into their craft than thinking about having to get a film out on a certain date. Netflix is certainly more than capable of distributing excellent animated features, but often gets a bad rap for the output of quantity-over-quality films it’s often pushed for. Speaking of which, Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie not only harms the reputation of Netflix’s better animated films, but the Spongebob franchise as a whole.
Upon the announcement of several Spongebob character films being greenlit for a streaming release in 2022, responses were understandably mixed. Saturation of the franchise was a common fear at the time, especially with the polarizing reception of the television spinoffs Kamp Koral: Spongebob’s Under Years and The Patrick Star Show, the former of which just recently finished its two-season run. Part of what made Spongebob so universally enjoyable early on was how far it could push its premise on television and in theaters without needing multiple series to do so. Following the messy release of the sponge’s third film Sponge on the Run in 2020, most wrote off the series as having lost its charm and direction, trying to figure its identity out again with flanderized characters and unengaging premises.
However, this announcement’s potential being drowned out by a vocal reluctant crowd failed to allow others to see the bigger picture. This could be a great soft reboot of the franchise’s direction, allowing for new worldbuilding and storylines to take form. Maybe a break from Spongebob himself while focusing on the other main characters would help usher the franchise back into shape.
Don’t get your hopes up.
It would be one thing if the problems started and ended with the somewhat stiff animation and the off-model appearance of some of the characters. And again, this is something I can often find reasoning for with the budget almost certainly being lower than the other Spongebob films that have released. I think what makes this in particular so jarring is that there’s proof these characters can work better in 3D than this film implies, and have well into the past. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water released nearly ten years ago from this new film, and proved that when given the time and effort the franchise deserves, the characters can take shape in 3D while retaining their expressiveness greatly. 2020’s Sponge on the Run perfects this approach as well; in spite of that film’s writing and pacing flaws, the visuals are absolutely gorgeous and the best the series has ever looked in 3D. The visuals of Saving Bikini Bottom are such a dramatic step back that the entire game almost feels like a long cutscene out of one of the sponge’s early platformer video games, with the only thing breaking that immersion being the incorporation of live-action elements.
Let’s not act like the presence of live-action harms this film in concept. Every single Spongebob film has incorporated live-action to some degree, whether as memorable as Shell City in The Spongebob Squarepants Movie or whatever the hell that Snoop Dogg scene was in Sponge on the Run. The execution of these scenes varies in quality, though I fear it’s only gone downhill since the release of the first film in 2004. To the film’s credit, I think Sandy’s reasoning for having traveled to Bikini Bottom is a great element to incorporate into the franchise. It surprisingly makes sense and is a great piece of worldbuilding, and it’s a question I feel like many people have passively wondered but never thought too hard on until this film.
The B.O.O.T.S. plot had a lot of potential, but its execution is home to loads of missed opportunity. Should the abduction of Bikini Bottom have been as easy as scooping a chunk of land out of the ocean? We could have seen deep-cut characters and locales such as Rock Bottom and Atlantis being studied prior to the capturing of the series’ main location, which would make sense in the context of learning the most about their bizarre way of life. Instead, the abduction happens abruptly less than ten minutes into the film, under which the stakes feel practically nonexistent as a result. The scientists in the B.O.O.T.S. facility aren’t half bad as far as direction and acting goes either, but their performances are bogged down by the sloppy visual effects of the film and the downright confusing motivations for almost every character’s actions.
With all this being said, it’s best to try to keep an open mind for the Squidward and Plankton spin-off films announced alongside this one. They’re sure to be of similar low quality and budget, but they’ll almost certainly be led and worked on by different people and be entirely different movies as a result. Almost. There is a small chance they’ll blend together with this one into a dark, nothing trilogy for America’s favorite cleaning tool turned cartoon.
Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is now streaming on Netflix.