With 2020’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run, we get the third big screen adventure adapted from the animated TV series. This series started with 2004’s The SpongeBob Movie and progressed through 2015’s Sponge Out of Water.

Not that Run got a lot of box office love. Released in August 2020 just as some theaters reopened, not many ventured to see the film in its natural habitat.

I sure didn’t, so this Blu-ray becomes my first look at Run. We head back to Bikini Bottom, the spot under the sea where SpongeBob Squarepants (voiced by Tom Kenny) and his pals live.

SpongeBob adores his pet snail Gary, which makes it traumatic when the gastropod vanishes. SpongeBob learns that King Poseidon (Matt Berry) holds Gary captive in the Lost City of Atlantic City, so SpongeBob and his buddy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) embark on a journey to rescue him.

As I noted in that review, I went into Water with only a modest foreknowledge of the SpongeBob world. While I enjoyed the 2015 film to a moderate degree, I couldn’t claim it wowed me.

Which becomes the reason I didn’t see anything else SpongeBob between 2015 and 2021. Although the property gave me some amusement, it didn’t delight me enough to prompt additional exploration.

Run doesn’t alter this. Indeed, Run resembles Water so closely that I felt tempted to simply recycle my review of the older movie.

One difference does occur, though, as Run crams in more celebrity cameos than its predecessor did. With Water, Antonio Banderas became the only obvious celeb presence.

Run broadens that. We get live-action appearances from Keanu Reeves, Snoop Dogg and Danny Trejo, and Awkwafina and Tiffany Haddish provide voices.

Do any of these add to the movie? Not really, as only Awkwafina – as robotic car “Otto” – gives us a fairly entertaining performance.

The others feel like stunt casting. Though animated, Haddish plays a variation on herself, and the three live-action stars seem tacked onto the proceedings.

It doesn’t help that Run provides a tale that can come across as fairly random. At its core, it boasts a basic “road trip” narrative, but the film finds ways to complicate this simple conceit.

As such, Run doesn’t flow especially well. I get the impression the filmmakers came up with the moralistic theme that eventually appears and built the rest of the plot around it.

This means Run can seem more episodic and disjointed than it should. We tend to find a random collection of events that don’t really go much of anywhere.

Like Water, Run mixes humor meant for kids with material aimed at adults. This continues to succeed on an erratic basis, as some of the gags land but plenty of them flop.

Again, this gives me a sense of déjà vu, as the same issues impacted Water. Both films provide moderate entertainment but they lack the consistency to fare better than that.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. As expected, the image looked terrific.

At all times, sharpness seemed strong. Virtually no softness marred the presentation, so it gave us tight, well-defined visuals. The movie lacked jaggies or shimmering, and it also failed to suffer from any edge haloes or print flaws.

In terms of palette, Run tended to favor a blue feel – and that made sense given the watery settings. Brighter tones emerged on plenty of occasions, though, especially when the action movies to the Lost City. The hues came across as lively and dynamic.

Blacks appeared deep and full, while low-light shots offered nice clarity – important in all the potentially-murky underwater scenes. I felt highly satisfied with this great image.

Though not as memorable, the movie’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack added some kick to the proceedings. Much of the movie emphasized general atmosphere, with the aquatic locations at the fore. These offered a nice sense of place, and some well-located directional dialogue contributed breadth as well.

Run never became an action spectacular, but it gave us a few impactful scenes. These offered fun material and opened up the spectrum in a pleasing manner. Music also filled the front and rear channels nicely.

Audio quality seemed strong. Effects were accurate and bold, with good accuracy and range, while music appeared full and rich.

Speech always came across as natural and concise. The soundtrack worked well for the film.

A few extras round out the disc, and we find a new mini-movie called I’m Urchin You to Leave. It runs four minutes, 50 seconds and shows SpongeBob and Patrick at Kamp Koral.

There they befriend a sea urchin and shenanigans ensue. It offers some amusement, abetted by the fact it boasts a brisk running time,

Under Campfire Songs, we locate four music videos. These encompass two versions of“Agua” by Tainy & J. Balvin, “How We Do” by Snoop Dogg and Monsta X, and “Krabby Step” by Tyga, Swae Lee and Lil Mosey.

Of these, only the first version of “Agua” qualifies as a “real music video”, as it shows Balvin’s lip-synch along with dancing from Patrick and SpongeBob. It doesn’t become very interesting, and Balvin sports arguably the dumbest haircut of all-time.

The other three provide “lyric videos”, so they mainly mix on-screen text with movie clips. They also fail to seem compelling.

Within Campfire Stories, we get two deleted storyboards: “Wake Up” (3:09) and “Sumo Ninja” (1:13). As implied by the title, “Wake Up” shows the start of the day in Bikini Bottom, while “Sumo” gives us antics between Patrick and SpongeBob.

“Sumo” doesn’t add much, but “Wake” could’ve fit the film. If nothing else, I like that it takes a dig at the Minions franchise.

Camp Coral Buddies includes two elements: “The Ballad of SpongeBob and Patrick” (5:01) and “I (Heart) Camp Coral” (2:28). “Ballad” looks at the friendship at the core friendship of SpongeBob with comments from writer/director Tim Hill, editor Michael W. Andrews, surfacing supervisor Anne-Claire Leroux, animation production designer Rachel Tiep-Daniels, head of animation photography John Clark, animation supervisor Jacques Daigle, and actors Rodger Bumpass, Carolyn Lawrence and Clancy Brown.

“(Heart)” shows SpongeBob’s camp photo album with the character’s narration. Both seem mediocre, though at least “(Heart)” offers some laughs.

Three more components show up under Camp Arts and Crafts. Two tutorials come first via “Drawing the Cutest Camper Ever” (9:19) and “Drawing the Cutest Snail Ever” (6:04).

In these, artist Perry Maple teaches us how to draw Young SpongeBob and Young Gary, respectively. Maple delivers an informative look at the processes involved.

The Amazing Stages of Animation fills two minutes, 12 seconds with narration from actor Bill Fagerbakke. He leads us through the four stages of animation in this rudimentary overview. Kids might learn something from it.

Finally, “But Wait… There’s S’Mores!” presents The Wonders of the Patty Mobile. In this two-minute, six-second clip, we contrast the vehicle from the TV series and its movie upgrade. It seems cute.

A second disc provides a DVD copy of Run. It includes the same extras as the Blu-ray.

For the character’s third big-screen adventure, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run tends to feel a lot like the second one. We get another sporadically entertaining but inconsistent comedic romp here. The Blu-ray boasts excellent visuals as well as solid audio and a decent array of bonus materials. Run becomes a watchable but erratic comedic effort.