Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie

image for Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie

Short takes

Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 7 (themes, scary scenes, violence)

Age
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
classification logo

This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie
  • a review of Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 4 October 2024.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Not suitable due to themes, scary scenes and violence.
Children aged 5–7 Not suitable due to themes, scary scenes and violence.
Children aged 8 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: The content is very mild in impact
Length: 86 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie follows a Texan squirrel called Sandy (voice of Carolyn Lawrence), who is studying marine biology. Her location of study is ‘Bikini Bottom’, where she finds herself in the middle of a mysterious abduction of the town itself. She is accompanied by SpongeBob SquarePants (voice of Tom Kenny) to find out where the town has gone and the story behind why the abduction happened in the first place. Sandy ends up returning home to Texas to further uncover the story and comes across her family who help her investigate the evil lurking above and below the sea. In doing so, they have to save SpongeBob’s friends Patrick (voice of Bill Fagerbakke), Squidward (voice of Rodger Bumpass), Plankton (voice of Mr. Lawrence) and all the other loveable characters of Bikini Bottom before the main villain, Sue Nahmee (voice of Wanda Sykes), turns everyone into sellable plush characters as merchandise!

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Animal cruelty; Rampant consumerism, Natural disasters; Greed.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Slight slapstick comedy is used throughout the film, notably with Bikini Bottom’s main villain, Plankton, being stepped on in the opening sequence and kicked around many times throughout the film which may be jarring to younger viewers. This is also evident with SpongeBob being used as comedic relief for most of the tense scenes of the film.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • A scary sequence, accompanied by red light and a crane opening up into the camera angle, almost as if it is going to eat the screen, may be scary for some young children.
  • During the town being captured, an anthropomorphised robot horse, who is carrying the main characters Sandy and SpongeBob, is disembodied in slow motion to show the collateral damage the crane did. This may be a little scary for younger viewers.
  • Plankton’s physical appearance with sharp teeth and ‘doom-desiring’ intentions may be scary for younger viewers. Parents may also find that his behaviour also sets a bad example.
  • There is a chase scene that involves Sandy, SpongeBob and Sandy’s family fighting off a group of hungry rattlesnakes. This may be triggering or scary for younger children.
  • The villain, Sue Nahmee, while having seemingly innocent intentions of turning the SpongeBob cast into cuddly toys, means to clone and make them come alive for marketing/entertainment purposes against the wishes of the Bikini Bottom population. This may be scary as they are kept captive in a fishbowl during the duration of the conflict.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Continuous slapstick comedy, where SpongeBob is constantly getting injured and hurt – an example of this is when SpongeBob is trying to show off to Sandy Cheeks and gets something stuck in his pore and cries out in pain or when she is dragging him to the volcanic vent and he is getting hit on the ground with every step.
  • The capturing of Bikini Bottom, through the aforementioned scary crane/claw coming down, could be a scary sequence for younger audiences as there are members of the community falling into the cracks and an overall dystopian design to the sequence.
  • The transition sequence of getting Sandy and SpongeBob onto dry land is done through riding a volcanic vent and then landing on a plane headed to America. In the descent, these characters are then picked up by a Texan tornado and blown miles off course; both natural phenomena may be scary for younger audiences.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

There is no coarse language in this movie. However, there are some insinuations or alternatives to swears, such as the following:

  • “Great Neptune” is a common term used throughout the film, mainly by Sandy Cheeks, to convey disbelief and mimics a blasphemous use of “Oh God!” which may be offensive to some viewers.
  • “Dang”, “heck” and “dagnabit” are all used by characters throughout the film when encountering challenges. These are all euphemisms for more profane language but are never explicitly used.

In a nutshell

Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is a light-hearted, animated adventure featuring familiar characters from the realm of SpongeBob SquarePants. The film is best suited to audiences over the age of five.

The main messages from this movie are the importance of family; and of looking after the environment and protecting nature as opposed to creating products and destroying places.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Persistence
  • Teamwork
  • Loyalty
  • Helpfulness
  • Studiousness
  • Family.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Remorseless behaviour, especially in the context of remorseless and rampant consumerism.
  • The impacts of animal cruelty and using science or research unethically.