The visual effects and fast and furious quips combine for that rarest of releases: one that both parents and kids can enjoy (just like the show), leaving viewers of any age hoping that the next SpongeBob movie isn’t an entire decade off.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The jokes are consistently hilarious, with enough variety to tickle the funny bones of old salts and young fishies alike.
At times there’s a genuine sense of daring to the film’s freewheeling anarchy, its refusal to stick to a central theme or impart any sort of lesson.
Slant Magazine by Eric Henderson
Its dedication to the transgressive power of frivolity remains the franchise's greatest weapon.
The Guardian by Jordan Hoffman
It isn’t just the sheer density of jokes that is impressive, but the diversity.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips
It's passable.
The Hollywood Reporter by Michael Rechtshaffen
Rather than further expanding those seemingly limitless SpongeBob horizons, the live action/CG stuff never satisfyingly jibes with the traditional nautical nonsense down below.
The gags, puns mostly, skew quite young. And those things Spongebob does that drive his onscreen castmate nuts — the shrieks and giggles and songs — are pitched to be a lot more irritating to adults than to small fry.
Ultimately, for the show’s fans, it may not matter if “Sponge Out of Water” shows a hint of mildew. After all, my co-critic’s most enthusiastic note — “Hilarious!” — was written before the lights even dimmed.
The Dissolve by Tasha Robinson
It’s amiable goofiness, delivered at an emphatic, feverish pitch. Inevitably, what works fine in 11-minute episodes becomes strained over 90 minutes on the big screen, especially during a grating musical number about teamwork.