It’s Plankton’s turn for his own SpongeBob SquarePants spinoff movie. The second show spinoff movie is about Bikini Bottom’s own evil genius Plankton. Does a movie about him have the secret formula to being good or will it go down like one of his plans?
“Plankton: The Movie” is about Plankton and his relationship with his computer Wife, Karen. After another failed attempt at trying to steal Mr. Krabs’ secret formula for the Krabby Patty, Karen decides to help in the plan of trying to take over the world by making the restaurant, The Chum Bucket, a place that people want to eat at. Plankton doesn’t like this plan because it’s not evil enough and this makes Karen snap enough to remove her empathy chip and throw Plankton out of his restaurant.
Karen decides to commit to her own plan to take over the world and Plankton must stop her. While the movie has Plankton’s name on it, SpongeBob is indeed part of this movie. He psychoanalyzes Plankton to get to the root of the problem to help Plankton repair his relationship with Karen. Through this, there are flashbacks through Plankton’s life; starting with his days with his family, then going through his days in college, how he built Karen, and his relationship with her. The duo team up to stop Karen and save Bikini Bottom and the world.
Most of the time with Plankton, he is in the antagonist role even in episodes of the show where’s the main character we expect to see him lose. This movie makes him the main character and we need him to win since Karen has become “the Big Bad” here. Plankton is still himself and even as the movie says he’s a jerk. While he is evil and wants to take over the world, he does have some heart deep in him and he must find it when Karen gets mad.
SpongeBob takes a different spot of being a supporting character as he tries to be a moral conscience for Plankton. He still is his loveable, goofy, and slightly naïve self, but he does show nuance and gets mad when Plankton really makes it hard. Plankton and he make for an interesting duo as they team up. He plays the role of a Dr. Freud-like psychologist there to analyze Plankton to help him figure out how to fix this relationship.
Karen goes from being supporting character for Plankton with her sarcastic witt and becomes a power-mad being there scooping up Bikini Bottom and plotting to get the surface to take over the world. She’s angry at Plankton because she feels like he doesn’t include or listen to her.
Also taking a more active role in the movie are a group of Karen’s friends called “the Gal Pals”. Sandy, Mrs. Puff, and Pearl come into the movie starting in the half after a moment with Karen in the start. They are also there to stop Karen and help SpongeBob and Plankton with their mission. It’s nice to that from the show added to this movie.
The rest of the SpongeBob cast mostly take a smaller role. Mr. Krabs is there to stop Plankton’s plan at the start, and he wants to fight Karen but loses his “army” as the rest of Bikini Bottom gets scared and runs. Squidward doesn’t have much of a role in the movie. Patrick doesn’t end up joining his best friend until the last quarter of the movie.
The Plankton Movie felt very personal and intimate as a movie. The story of Plankton and his relationship with Karen having a rocky time. It’s not something we see much in Spongebob. It’s an interesting story to see how Plankton cared for Karen as a calculator and then later built her as the supercomputer we know. We see him realize that he does care about her and that he did hurt her feelings with his focus being focused so much on stealing secret formula. The movie was written by Mr. Lawrence, the voice of Plankton himself, and who would know Plankton better than someone who has voiced him for so long?
The movie is also a musical. The songs are good, though I won’t say as strong as the biggest memorable “SpongeBob” songs. Karen’s villain song with SpongeBob doing the refrain was fun. Plankton’s song is fun as it almost feels like a defeated ego song, but twists into him being a proud “jerk”. The songs are fun and a varied mix to keep things interesting.
The movie is a 3D CGI movie, which is not the best fit for SpongeBob’s universe. The CGI looks fine, but make characters look a little ‘rubbery’. The movie adds in some live action, which is essentially SpongeBob movies tradition. I love how the movie changes art styles for Plankton’s flashbacks and moments. There’s a 1930’s style animation for Plankton’s childhood, for example. The best looking was the moment where Plankton gets the empathy chip inserted into his brain and it becomes very psychedelic, bright and colorful.
The story was serviceable, I enjoyed Plankton here, he’s always a fun character so it was nice to see him shine, and a plot did not dominate by getting the secret formula. The movie is fine for an easy view, it’s not standout. The pacing was fine, it’s a less than 90-minute movie and doesn’t feel like it’s dragging out time or going too fast. The animation is also serviceable, I do wish they had gone with the show’s 2D style instead of another 3D CGi affair, the times the movie switches animation styles are more interesting. The songs were fine, and done well, probably not as memorable as I could remember after watching the movie. That’s over all what the movie is not bad, it’s fine.
“The Plankton Movie” is on Netflix.
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