Some phenomenon I just don’t get. Baloney and peanut butter, pickles and ice cream, Bush getting a second term, things like that. Add to that list the unheard of popularity of a little yellow sponge and his starfish best friend living at the bottom of the sea. But there it is, from preschool to the retirement community, people all across the world have fallen in love with SpongeBob SquarePants, and who am I to tell them they’ve all got a screw loose?

Still, some things should probably stay on the small screen, and what works over a twenty minute span might not allow for expansion to eighty. Such is the case, at least in my opinion, of “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.” Marginally amusing in bits, as a whole I just couldn’t stay interested, the tone and storyline to overly obnoxious and juvenile.

Not that the target audience cared, they laughed and cheered and applauded throughout ready and eager to eat up even the most inane moment with all the passion of a Trekkie getting the autograph of every single starship captain all at once. Kids – and I just don’t mean the little ones, adult-looking ones, too – arrived wearing SpongeBob pajamas, T-shirts, ball caps, tennis shoes, etc., etc. It was astounding, mind-blowing even, and for them this movie was akin to a religious experience.

The plot is simple enough: Young SpongeBob finds himself crushed when his boss at the Krusty Krab decides to make the older Squidward manager of the brand new Krusty Krab 2. Claiming he just couldn’t hand a managerial position to a kid, Bob and best friend Patrick decide to prove to the cranky crab they’re men by going on a perilous mission to retrieve merman King Neptune’s crown. Stolen by the evil – and highly diminutive – Plankton, whom has framed Mr. Krab for the crime and stolen his secret recipe for the Krabby Patty, the two best friends have six days to find Neptune’s symbol of authority before Bob’s boss is broiled alive. Along the way they’ll fight sea monsters, tangle with a spur-wearing hitman, blow some bubbles, sing a few songs and even meet a pectorially-enhanced David Hasselhoff. Through it all, Bob and Patrick learn the most important lesson of all, embracing their inherent kid-ness and realizing adulthood isn’t something to race towards but let happen gradually.

It’s a nice message, and the pure innocence of the characters is nice. There are also some highly amusing pop culture references that might zip by the casual viewer, but if you catch them they definitely earn a grin here and there. And, while the animation itself per se isn’t anything to shout about, there is a pure, unhurried charm to the decidedly old-school sketchings zipping across the screen. It’s also nice that, other than a brief bare yellow sponge bottom and a stiletto-and-fishnet-clad starfish, there is virtually nothing parents should find even remotely objectionable. The good guys win, the bad guys get caught and a valuable lesson in maturity and friendship is learned by all.

But even at less than ninety minutes, “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” is simply more than I could take. Sure, there’s excellent voice work by series regulars Tom Kenny (SpongeBob), Bill Fagerbakke (Patrick) and Mr. Lawrence (Plankton) and by newcomers Alec Baldwin (Dennis, the hitman), Scarlett Johansson (Mindy the Mermaid) and Jeffrey Tambor (King Neptune), but the movie still had trouble holding my attention. It was just too silly, too infantile and absurd. There’s also too much in the way of bathroom humor for my liking, and while I know little kids eat up smelly grotesqueness with a spoon I can’t say I ever have, the charms of a good food fight or a smelly butt fluff lost on me.

Not that my complaining or criticism is going to matter in the slightest. SpongeBob isn’t just a hit, he’s an institution.  From a gang of pirates singing the theme song to countless variation of the Goofy Goober anthem, the audience of young and old sang along as if they were doing late-night karaoke. During the before-movie giveaway, four-year-olds answered trivia questions with as much enthusiasm as opening a present on Christmas morning. And not just any kind of trivia questions, but ones like,” What was the name of the episode where SpongeBob did…” and so on and so forth. It’s insanity, and I just don’t get it.

But hey, I eat pickles (not baloney) with my peanut butter (not ice cream), so what do I know?

SpongeBob Fans: êêê1/2

The Rest of Us: êê

Average: êê3/4  (out of 4)