🔗 Share this article

Would the early viewers who chuckled through the initial SpongeBob adventures have envisioned the series enduring for a 25 years, following experiencing the most lysergic of narrative twists? This longevity is in part attributed to its wide-ranging charm, tickling the sense of humor of adults – perhaps even those former students – alongside the very young viewers. While it can't claim anything as surprising as the memorable David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this latest movie thinks nothing of making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while handing out royalty cheques to music icons like Barbra Streisand. This proves anything can still in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.

An Established Zany Groove

Kicking off with a holiday short featuring Paramount's other weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob movie soon settles into a comfortably silly rhythm. Its script serves as a PG-rated treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This iteration of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now measures 36 clams high, a detail that excites him as it at last allows him to experience his dream rollercoaster. (An early, psychedelic laugh: our enthusiastic hero's fantasized loop-the-loops.) However, as in the best modern American animation, the real rollercoaster is the twisting plotting.

The Adventure for Swashbuckling Proof

SpongeBob's mission to obtain the legendary pirate license that will declare him a “big guy” leads him into conflict with the spectral Flying Dutchman, brought to life by the currently ubiquitous Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ghost ship adds a larger scale, the movie's aesthetic remains a charming bricolage of digimation and hand-crafted components, forever highlighting satisfying, properly animated effects.

Whether its spitballing silliness will resonate after the credits is debatable, but it's a solid SpongeBob movie.

Memorable moments feature SpongeBob wedging himself into an AC unit and emerging somehow more rectangular than ever; a brief appearance from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a penalty guaranteed to resonate with the younger audience: our hero being subjected to endless dishwashing.

The Verdict

Ultimately, Search for SquarePants stands as a reliable addition to the series – and arguably the funniest pirate-themed movie recently, encompassing a robust Davy Jones gag and a cheekily suggestive saying for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is clear: those early students will likely be chuckling all over again.

Release Dates: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants debuts on December 19th in the US, 20 December in Ireland, and December 26th in Australia and the UK.