Sandy Cheeks, the high-energy Texan squirrel from the SpongeBob SquarePants universe, gets to save the day in this new, bizarro movie that incorporates both live action and animation. Packed into 90 minutes are musical numbers, thick-as-molasses Southern accents and Wanda Sykes as an evil blue-haired C.E.O. named Sue.
In this adventure, science-loving Sandy (voiced by Carolyn Lawrence) and her trusty pal SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) travel to a laboratory in Galveston, Texas, to save their underwater town of Bikini Bottom. Sue and her lackeys, Phoebe (Ilia Isorelýs Paulino) and Kyle (Matty Cardarople), scooped up the entire town (using science!) with the goal of cloning and selling SpongeBob, Sandy and the other citizens. If this all sounds utterly ridiculous, it is, but that didn’t stop my son from watching it four times in six days.
When I asked him what he liked about the movie, which evokes a 1970s sci-fi acid trip in its production design and costumes, he said, “I like how they can make inventions that actually work.” Fair enough. Liza Johnson (“The Diplomat,” “Dead To Me”) directed from a script by Kaz and Tom Stern.
The fourth film in Disney’s “Descendants” series follows Red (Kylie Cantrall), the rebellious daughter of the Queen of Hearts (Rita Ora), as she tries to turn back time, literally, and stop her controlling mother from staging a coup that could destroy their world. Red is forced to team up with Chloe (Malia Baker), the wide-eyed daughter of Cinderella (Brandy), and they use the White Rabbit’s magical pocket watch to time travel and undo the rivalry between their mothers, and in turn, the chaos that the Queen of Hearts attempts to unleash.
The lush costumes and set pieces are fun to look at, and Ora plays up the villainy of classic lines like, “Off with her head!” The plot is pretty predictable, but the sword fights, dance numbers and girl-power vibe should appeal to fans of the series and the characters. Jennifer Phang (“The Boys,” “The Flight Attendant”) directed, and Dan Frey and Ru Sommer wrote the screenplay.
‘The Imaginary’
When we meet Rudger (voiced by Kokoro Terada in Japanese, and by Louie Rudge-Buchanan in English), he’s a blond boy who tells us he’s “three months, three weeks and three days old.” He’s no ordinary child, but the imaginary friend of a British girl named Amanda (Rio Suzuki and Evie Kiszel). She dreamed up Rudger as a way to process the recent death of her father.
Rudger’s existence is threatened when the creepy Mr. Bunting (Issey Ogata and Jeremy Swift) appears. Mr. Bunting eats imaginaries, and he wants nothing more than to make a meal of Rudger. When Amanda tries to save Rudger from Mr. Bunting in a busy parking lot one day, she’s hit by a car, and Rudger fears he’ll disappear forever. A mysterious cat named Zinzan (Takayuki Yamada and Kal Penn) shows Rudger a secret library full of other imaginaries, and Rudger tries to hold out hope that Amanda won’t forget him.
This anime’s fanciful, whimsical and visually gorgeous aesthetic (giant yetis, talking robots and hippos) helps to balance the darkness in the story, which is based on a children’s book by A.F. Harrold. It is the third work from Studio Ponoc, which was founded by the former Studio Ghibli producer Yoshiaki Nishimura, who wrote the script. Yoshiyuki Momose (a “Spirited Away” animator) directed.
‘Wolfwalkers’
It’s the 17th century, and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell (Simon McBurney) has sent the English hunter Bill Goodfellowe (Sean Bean) to a remote outpost in Ireland to kill a pack of vicious wolves that has been terrorizing a community. Goodfellowe’s young daughter Robyn (Honor Kneafsey) begs to go with him. For a girl in the 1600s, embarking on such a dangerous mission is forbidden, but Robyn isn’t having it. She follows her father into the woods, where she meets Mebh (Eva Whittaker), a girl from a mysterious tribe who transforms into wolf form when she sleeps. Robyn finds herself on an epic adventure that takes her deep into the forest, where she discovers her own courage and learns about the importance of respecting nature — wolves included.
This Oscar-nominated film is from Cartoon Saloon (“My Father’s Dragon,” “The Breadwinner”), the Irish studio that specializes in gorgeous hand-drawn animation. Tomm Moore (“The Secret of Kells,” “Song of the Sea”) directed with Ross Stewart, and Will Collins (“Song of the Sea”) wrote the script.
‘My Spy: The Eternal City’
This sequel to the 2020 action comedy “My Spy” finds the teen spy Sophie (Chloe Coleman) four years older and wiser, but much more easily embarrassed by her stepfather, JJ (Dave Bautista), a former C.I.A. agent who trained her in the art of espionage in the first film, after she discovered that he was spying on her and her mother.
JJ, having given up the Bond life for family life, is now overprotective and working in an office, but he still trains Sophie in martial arts and self-defense, just in case. When he chaperones Sophie’s high school choir trip to Italy (yes, she’s mortified), his days as a desk jockey quickly end. There just so happens to be a weapon of mass destruction in Vatican City, so JJ’s former boss David Kim (Ken Jeong) asks him to head up a mission to stop the bomb from detonating. Kristen Schaal is back as Bobbi, JJ’s goofy partner; Craig Robinson is Agent Connelly; and Anna Faris plays Nancy, the school vice principal who may or not be a bad guy.
Yes, it’s far-fetched, and there’s a lot more violence than there was in the first film, so just be warned of kicks to the face and cursing. But for older children who loved the original, “The Eternal City” might prove to be a sufficient end-of-summer distraction. The “My Spy” director Peter Segal (“Tommy Boy,” “The Naked Gun 33 ⅓”) directed this one, too, and co-wrote the script with the siblings Erich and Jon Hoeber.
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