Parents' Guide to Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie

Despite having a well-deserving subject, this SpongeBob movie signals that the franchise might be squeezed dry. Mostly cleaned up of edgy and insulting humor (yay!), Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is also scrubbed of any kind of laughs (dang). The series has always delivered giggles for its young target audience while also offering storylines and jokes that could entertain adults, too. But this spin-off skews so young that fifth graders are likely to click it off. And for little kids, the animation is so loud, fast-moving, and chaotic, with too many new characters to grasp, that it's overstimulating.

The SpongeBob movies are known for bringing the residents of Bikini Bottom into the real world. That happens here, too. But instead of creating laughter from the absurdness of an animated, talking sponge chatting with a giant David Hasselhoff, the scenes inside the lab feel low-budget and ultimately diminish and distract. But here's the thing: Despite all of these flaws, the film isn't without its charm, namely Sandy Cheeks herself. She's an intelligent, happy, reasonable, strong, capable, reliable, trustworthy, fully dimensional female animated character who has existed for a quarter of a century in a silly universe with characters who are grumpy, daft, angry, materialistic, and clueless. The movie's enjoyment comes from watching this furry female finally flourish.