Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run’ on Paramount+, the Latest Splash of Admirable Madness From the Longstanding Franchise

America finally gets to see The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run on Paramount+ and VOD services, after its release date was on the run for the better part of last year. Originally slotted for a July 2020 release, COVID chased the movie all over the calendar before Netflix scooped it up for international streaming release, excluding the U.S., China and Canada. After all that, the movie will debut in those three markets on the same day the new Paramount+ streaming service launches, alongside a brand-new spinoff series, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, which is sort of like SpongeBob Babies. Notably, both show and movie render SpongeBob and co. with modern, bubbly 3-D animation — like some portions of 2015 film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water — so traditionalists, consider yourself duly warned. Now, are you ready? (IN LOUDEST AND MOST ANNOYING VOICE POSSIBLE) I’M READY! I’M READY! I’M READY!

THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE ON THE RUN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: SpongeBob (voice of Tom Kenny) loves his pet snail Gary. Loves him. LOOOOOOOOOVESSSSSSSSSS him. You know how SpongeBob is. He doesn’t do anything halfway. Everything to 11, baby, 12 if you can. He gives Gary a goodbye squish and heads to work as fry cook extraordinaire at the Krusty Krab, where he treats his beloved eight-burner grill like a queen, reading it a story to warm it up before a long day of charring meat patties for scads of hungry customers. Some of the usual stuff happens: SpongeBob annoys Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), helps Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) rack up sales, has moronic and screamingly loud interactions with starfish best buddy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke). Just another day in Bikini Bottom, says a narrator doing a reasonably reverential David Attenborough impression.

Do I need to mention how perpetually dive-suited squirrel Sandy Cheeks (Carolyn Lawrence) invents a janky robot with the voice of Awkwafina and it ends up in the itty bitty mitts of the diabolical Plankton (Mr. Lawrence), and he uses it in a scheme to run SpongeBob out of town and therefore make it easier to steal the coveted Krabby Patty recipe? Eh, why not. Plankton’s scheme goes like this: He’ll steal Gary and give him to King Poseidon (Matt Berry), a vain merman monarch who uses snail slime as wrinkle cream, forcing SpongeBob to lose his poop in a screamingly loud manner, then venture to the Lost City of Atlantic City to retrieve his beloved pet. Patrick goes with him, of course, and there are celebrity cameos along the way, of course, and one of them is a guru played by Keanu Reeves’ head inside a rolling tumbleweed, OF COURSE. What did you expect? Something that isn’t surreal cerebrum-twaddling hyper-maniacal screeching-lunatic nonsense?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The ones you see when you close your eyes after you’ve smoked wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too much weed.

Performance Worth Watching: Keanu has really endeared himself to the world since John Wick, hasn’t he? He gooses Sponge on the Run almost as much as he did to underrated Netflix rom-com Always Be My Maybe.

Memorable Dialogue: “Never hurts to employ a little hyperbole,” Plankton says, distilling 22 years of SpongeBob’s overriding creative philosophy into seven words.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: By the time SpongeBob and Patrick reach the Lost City of Atlantic City, we fully expect havoc to be wreaked (wrecked?) like it’s never been wrought before. I’m here to warn you to temper those expectations a bit, because Sponge on the Run maintains a fleet pace until it bogs down in a lengthy third-act sequence during which SpongeBob and Patrick face public trial and execution for reasons that, trust me, aren’t at all important. During this portion of the film, we’re subject to flashbacks to Kamp Koral (aha!), when a young, wide-eyed and apple-cheeked SpongeBob first met all the principal characters in the series. Wait — is this an ORIGIN STORY? You’re darn tootin’. And a wholly unnecessary one.

Then again, a strong argument can be made that the mere existence of SpongeBob defies necessity — and it’s kind of great precisely for that reason. It’s greater in smallish chunks on teevee than at feature-length, when its unapologetic frivolity, winking self-awareness and unrelenting obnoxiousness tends to wear thin. Sponge on the Run is funny and wild and exploding with the franchise’s usual mad energy. It’s the third theatrical movie in the franchise, and the point isn’t to win over new audiences, but to reaffirm that: SpongeBob is the same screwball, as ever, in 3-D as he is in 2-D (I appreciate how Plankton calls him a “boob-savant”); to launch a new spinoff series (just gotta pony up for that monthly subscription); and to give its Marianas-entrenched fanbase another super-sized treat with a Keanu cherry on top. You’re not going to convince any diehard SpongeBobbers that there’s such a thing as too much ice cream, so to speak.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The thing about SpongeBob the franchise is, you can’t help but appreciate it for not even trying — or even wanting — to force any sort of moral on its audience beyond the character’s unrelenting positivity despite the world’s, and his own, madness. It’s admirably warped, even if you’re not always on board with it. So yes, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run is worth burning the seven-day free trial for.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run on Paramount+