The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

The beloved Nickelodeon character becomes “bigger, better and more absorbent” for his feature film debut, which serves as the last installment of the “SpongeBob SquarePants” series to be released before the departure of series creator Stephen Hillenburg. SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenney), an optimistic and good-hearted sea sponge, dreams of becoming a manager at the Krusty Krab restaurant but is denied the promotion by his boss, Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), for being too young and inexperienced (as sponges can live to be 500 years old, our hero is still a kid at 31); SpongeBob gets a chance to prove himself when he’s tasked with journeying to the no man’s land (or is it no man’s water?) of Shell City to retrieve King Neptune’s (Jeffrey Tambor) crown, which was stolen by Mr. Krabs’ business rival, Sheldon J. Plankton (Mr. Lawrence), in a plot to steal the secret formula to the famous Krabby Patty burger. SpongeBob is accompanied by his friend, Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke), on his death-defying quest, during which they are pursued by Plankton’s assassin, Dennis (Alec Baldwin), and receive a much-needed assist from Neptune’s daughter, Princess Mindy (Scarlett Johansson). Nickelodeon went all-out for this epic adventure, which features a parody of Twisted Sister’s ’80s metal ballad, “I Wanna Rock,” as well as non-animated cameos by Neil Ross as the Cyclops. . . and David Hasselhoff as himself. A sequel is currently in production at Paramount Animation and will be released in late 2014. – IFC Staff