"Plankton: The movie" it's a mess, as I expected.

As someone who grew up with SpongeBob SquarePants, I find it regrettable that Stephen Hillenburg's brilliant creation has become a hollow shell of what it once was: one of the most creative and fun animated projects of recent decades, capable of organically blending an absurdist style of humor with a very unique slice-of-life where we followed the experiences of a sea sponge working in a fast-food restaurant in Bikini Bottom, a perfect representation of the enthusiasm and innocence of a child inside the mind of an adult.

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It would be unfair to say that SpongeBob SquarePants doesn't work in the feature-length format, considering how solid the 2004 film was, which, by the way, was conceived as the conclusion to the animated series, with a story that perfectly encapsulated the spirit of the show, but at the same time featured a more epic scale and a production that elevated what we saw on our television screens to another level. The character's subsequent cinematic forays weren't as successful, and all of them suffered to a greater or lesser extent, failing to understand what made him a popular culture icon in the first place: a solid figure who satirized the dramas of adult life but at the same time could connect with the little ones in the house.

As if that weren't enough, the alliance with Netflix and Nickelodeon has lent itself to milking him to the limit, resulting in the production of a spin-off and multiple films that, while boasting a technically "superior" animation style, are extremely mediocre and disposable works that fail to capture our attention, even if they are relatively short.

"Plankton: The Movie" is the most recent offender of this philosophy, a sort of spin-off built around the antagonistic character SpongeBob and his partner: Karen the Computer.

On paper, the Plankton Movie formula should work, and I feel there's narrative potential in developing a story centered around this great (small) character.

However, as has become expected with the franchise a few years ago, we're left with nothing more than a sequence of absurd gags with more or less coherence, forgettable musical moments, and a predictable ending that fails to land well emotionally.

Everything we've come to expect from a SpongeBob movie is found here on the surface: recognizable faces, callbacks to several of the show's classic seasons, and the return of most of the voices we usually associate with the cast. The same can't be said for the show's more abstract elements, its solid messages, and its ability to serve as more than just background noise.

Plankton The Movie doesn't even deserve a chance, and despite its striking new animation style, I still prefer the traditional 2D format.

This score was taken from my Letterboxd account.