🔗 Share this article

Could those early viewers who laughed through the first SpongeBob adventures have envisioned the franchise enduring for a 25 years, even after absorbing the most surreal of plotlines? Such longevity is in part due to its broad charm, amusing the sense of humor of adults – perhaps even those former students – as well as the youngest viewers. While it can't claim anything quite as unexpected as a certain memorable David Hasselhoff appearance in the 2004 movie, this fourth feature has no qualms about making a veteran voice actor speak as a pirate while handing out payments to music icons like Barbra Streisand. It seems everything can still in the whimsical world of Bikini Bottom.

A Familiar Goofy Groove

Starting with a festive short starring Paramount's alternative weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob movie soon finds a recognizably silly rhythm. Its script serves as a PG-rated treatise on the pros and cons of maturity. This version of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now stands 36 clams high, a fact that thrills him as it at last qualifies him to ride his dream rollercoaster. (An initial, trippy laugh: our overexcitable hero's fantasized loop-the-loops.) Yet, like the best contemporary American animation, the true rollercoaster is the corkscrew plotting.

The Quest for Pirate Credentials

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 ever-present Mark Hamill. While the Dutchman's ghost ship adds a grander scope, the film's visual style remains a delightful bricolage of digital animation and hand-turned elements, forever highlighting satisfying, authentically cartoonish effects.

If its freewheeling silliness will linger when the lights come up is debatable, but it's a strong SpongeBob movie.

Memorable moments feature SpongeBob squeezing himself into an AC unit and emerging somehow more rectangular than ever; a cameo from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a penalty sure to delight the six-year-old crowd: our hero being forced into never-ending dishwashing.

Final Thoughts

In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a reliable entry to the franchise – and arguably the most humorous Pirates of the Caribbean movie in years, encompassing a hearty Davy Jones gag and a saltily suggestive saying for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is certain: those early students will probably be snickering anew.

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