The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water Review Round-Up: Do Critics Think It's Better Than Krabby Patties?!

Find out what the critics are saying about Nickelodeon's live-action twist on a longtime favorite

SpongeBob SquarePants lives in a pineapple under the sea—and he's a hit.

But will audiences still love this porous yellow dude and his quirky BFFs when they leave Bikini Bottom behind and enter into our world?! It seems the answer is yes, because that's exactly what happens in TheSpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, and the critics are (for the most part) liking it even more than SpongeBob likes his Krabby Patties!

RogerEbert.com's Christy Lemire admits she was "looking at this [the film] form the perspective of a grown woman who's reviewed films for a living for the past 16 years," but writes that kids "won't be nearly so analytical/uptight/whatever you want to call it."

She brought her 5-year-old son and his friend to a screening, "and they were literally jumping up and down, dancing and giggling their heads off," she writes. "In theory, this is all that matters."

Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times admits "low-tech rules" in in all things SpongeBob, film and TV, and "not always to great effect when it comes to the effects." And while she finds that some of the live-action animation "looks like a bored kid superimposed cartoon characters onto a video of a crowded day at Venice Beach," she acknowledges the "classic slapstick sweetness that makes SpongeBob—in or out of water, on big screen or small—hard not to laugh at and love at least a little. Giggle giggle."

Drew Taylor of IndieWire's The Playlist notes: "This animated movie isn't about anything, really, so don't look for morals or thematic undercurrents. But even at its most mundane, it's still pretty trippy." The critic notes, however, "...it would be disingenuous to say that the franchise isn't showing its age, because it is." Despite this, though, Taylor writes, "...there's still enough out there nuttiness in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water to appreciate and enjoy..."

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the Nickelodeon picture a "Fresh" rating of 74 percent, while audiences ranked it a solid 83 percent.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is in theaters Friday.