🔗 Share this article

Could those early viewers who chuckled through the first SpongeBob adventures have predicted the series persisting for a 25 years, even after absorbing the most surreal of narrative twists? This staying power is in part due to its broad appeal, amusing the funny bones of adults – possibly even those former students – as well as the very young viewers. Although it may not feature anything as surprising as the legendary David Hasselhoff cameo in the 2004 movie, this latest movie thinks nothing of having Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while dispensing royalty cheques to music icons like Barbra Streisand. It seems anything can still in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.

An Established Zany Vibe

Starting with a holiday short featuring Paramount's alternative weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob movie quickly finds a recognizably goofy rhythm. Its script serves as a family-friendly treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of maturity. This version of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now measures a specific height, a detail that excites him as it at last qualifies him to experience his fantasy coaster. (An initial, psychedelic laugh: our enthusiastic hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) Yet, like the best modern American animation, the real rollercoaster is the corkscrew plotting.

The Quest for Pirate Proof

SpongeBob's mission to secure the fabled pirate license that will prove him a “big guy” leads him into a showdown with the spectral Flying Dutchman, brought to life by the currently ubiquitous Mark Hamill. While the Dutchman's ghost ship introduces a larger scale, the film's aesthetic remains a charming bricolage of digital animation and hand-crafted elements, forever highlighting satisfying, authentically cartoonish visuals.

If its spitballing humor will linger after the credits is up for discussion, but it's a solid SpongeBob movie.

Memorable moments feature SpongeBob wedging himself into an air conditioner and coming out somehow squarer than before; a brief appearance from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a penalty guaranteed to delight the six-year-old audience: our hero being subjected to endless dishwashing.

The Verdict

In the end, Search for SquarePants stands as a solid addition to the franchise – and arguably the funniest pirate-themed movie in years, including a robust Davy Jones joke and a cheekily innuendo-laden saying for SpongeBob's pal Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” One thing is certain: those early fans will likely be snickering all over again.

Coming to Theaters: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants debuts on 19 December in the US, 20 December in Ireland, and 26 December in Australia and the UK.