"SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: SPONGEBOB VS. THE BIG ONE"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: *** (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: **1/2 (out of 5 stars) STARRING Tom Kenny as SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS Bill Fagerbakke as PATRICK STAR Rodger Bumpass as SQUIDWARD TENTACLES Clancy Brown as MR. EUGENE H. KRABS Mr. Lawrence as PLANKTON Johnny Depp as THE BIG ONE Not Rated Studio: Nickelodeon Back to DVD Review Home |  |
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
“SpongeBob Vs. The Big One” is the lead-in episode to a disc of seven episodes of the passionately loved “SpongeBob SquarePants” television show. In this anchor episode, SpongeBob and the gang are swept out to sea by a giant wave, where they must seek the advice and leadership of The Big One (voiced by Johnny Depp) to return safely to Bikini Bottom. Additional episodes on the disc include “A Life in a Day,” “Sun Bleached,” “Giant Squidward,” “No Nose Knows,” “Patty Caper” and “Plankton’s Regular.”
WHAT I LIKED
With three kids under the age of ten in my house, there’s a lot of SpongeBob that is watched on our television. To keep my wife and myself sane, we have banished most SpongeBob watching to the boys’ room. My wife, in particular, can’t stand the show, but I can take it in small doses. So there was a certain amount of joy from my sons when I offered them a chance to watch “SpongeBob SquarePants” on the “big TV” in the main room of the house.
“The Big One” was an interesting episode, clearly wrapped around Johnny Depp’s guest spot. While interesting and funny, it wasn’t the best of the bunch. The episode “Giant Squidward” was more self-contained in Bikini Bottom and featured a very routine episode with Patrick and SpongeBob accidentally making Squidward grow ginormous. In “No Nose Knows,” we see Patrick try to surgically put on a nose for himself to discover the joys (and woes) of smelling things.
My favorite ones in the batch were the final episodes, “Patty Caper” and “Plankton’s Regular” simply because they featured my favorite character, Plankton. He was less conspicuous in “Patty Caper,” simply as a suspect in the theft of the crabby patty formula. However, “Plankton’s Regular” gave his bigger-than-life character a chance to shine in a story about a customer that mysteriously loves all the food the Chum Bucket has to offer.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
In a certain way, “SpongeBob SquarePants” is like pizza. It can be fun and decadent once in a while, but you don’t want to live on a steady diet of it. Kids, however, can eat pizza twice a day for a week and not grow tired of it. Likewise, they can watch “SpongeBob SquarePants” 24-hours-a-day and still love the show.
The advantage to this DVD is that it is only a single disc that runs about 90 minutes. There’s not a terrible time commitment, offering the show in bite-sized chunks. Plus, the disc doesn’t repeat that theme song at the beginning of every episode, a practice that I believe has been banned by the Geneva Convention.
DVD FEATURES
There are a couple DVD bonus features that are offered on this disc. First, there’s a low-rent music video from the “Ridin’ the Hook” song in “Vs. The Big One.” However the other feature is almost worth the cost of the video itself. Plankton sits in for an episode and provides a “Plankton’s Special Sinister Commentary,” in which he ridicules our heroes for an episode from the theater seats.
WHO’S GOING TO LIKE THIS MOVIE
SpongeBob devotees, but probably not their parents.
